


Down, Down (dirt curls around bare bones)

by v0rtexFM



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, James Potter was a Dick, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, The Marauders were Dicks, ghost character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-04-16 16:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 23,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14169153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v0rtexFM/pseuds/v0rtexFM
Summary: She was cold. Lost. Lost. Dead. Her throat hung ragged over her shoulders, her arm bent backwards, her chest a soupy mess of gore and pain. She was cold. Cold. Dead.Whole. Her robes pristine, green catching the light that shone from the compartment windows and winking from her sleeves. She was still cold, but the pain was gone. Gone. Dead. She felt nothing but the burning rage kindled behind her ribs.James Potter did this.James Potter killed her.--Harry Potter pulled open the compartment door in search of a space, in search of a friend.He finds hate so ferocious it sinks sharp beneath his sternum.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Harry saw her, he was walking along the Hogwarts Express looking for an empty compartment. Dragging his trunk along behind him, he found one with a closed door and no shadow playing over the frosted glass. When he pulled the door open, however, he barely managed to restrain a surprised yelp.

  
Sitting in the seat next to the window, facing away, was a person. Older than him, if their height was any indication, the figure had a curtain of shiny hair hanging down their back, black like midnight in his cupboard, like the ink he bought along with his new feather quills.

  
“He – hello?” He called out quietly. “Could I sit here, maybe?”

  
For a moment he thought they hadn’t heard him, then that head of limitless black turned and a pair of slate grey eyes fixed upon him. Oh, they were a girl, and she was definitely older than him. All sallow skin and jutting cheekbones, nose overlong and bent to one side like it had been broken more than once, hair parted slick down the middle, she looked like she could’ve been fifteen or sixteen years old.

  
Harry blinked, once, then twice, and in that short span of time her lips curled up in an ugly snarl, showing pearly white teeth that sat uneven in her mouth. Those slate grey eyes, ringed with electric blue around the pupil, were almost entirely hidden by thin, angry brows; a glare so vicious it cut straight through his heart.

  
“Potter,” she spat, face contorting with rage, “Get out. Get out!”

  
He stepped back in fear and, before he could even think of a reason this stranger would hate him so much, the compartment door slammed shut with a bang.

  
He didn’t realize until much later that she had neither moved from her spot nor waved her wand to send the door flying closed.

  
Shaken and unsure, Harry quickly dragged his trunk further down the train in hopes of putting distance between himself and the frightening girl. Another three compartments down and he found one that was completely empty, which is where he decided to sit. Moments later, Ron Weasley would join him, beginning a lifelong friendship, and he would forget all about the snarling girl.

  
At least, until the next time they met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fic on AO3 and I don't know what I'm doing. Feel free to critique, I'd love the input!


	2. Chapter 2

The second time Harry saw the angry girl was the same night he discovered the Mirror of Erised. Worn and raw, despair and longing leaking from his every pore, he shuffled quietly through the corridors of the castle underneath his invisibility cloak before even the faintest streaks of dawn painted themselves over the horizon. He knew he had to get back to Gryffindor Tower before Ron or Neville or Dean or Seamus woke, yet his feet were dragging. Something of him was left behind in that room, a part of his heart dug free with an ice cream scoop and splattered on the floor in front of the mirror, and he could still feel its pull.

Harry was lost in his own head, looking at his feet, thinking of those faces full of love, when he felt the chill. It set a squirmy feeling in his belly, a shiver down his spine; it was an insidious cold that curled up through his bones and around his heart. He knew it had to be a draft, that was the only explanation.

Yet as he drew the cloak tighter around his shoulders and walked on, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end – slowly, like they were moving one at a time. Harry moved faster, feet eating up the stone beneath him, and barely managed to stop himself barrelling into a black-robed figure as he tore around the corner.

“Sneaking around, eh, Potter?” The figure hissed.

He recognized her, then, as the girl from the train, and she sounded so much like Snape he had to do a double-take. No, it was her alright, and she was a lot taller and a lot skinnier than he first thought. She was also looking right at him – had seen him – and Harry’s mind was whirling. How? Wasn’t his cloak supposed to make him invisible?

“What? Kneazle got your tongue?” She sneered. “No witty retort?” She shifted, crossed her arms, and he saw the deep green lining of her robes – great, she was a Slytherin. “You’re lucky I’m not a Prefect yet, Potter, else you’d be in detention for a month.”

Harry stumbled back, gaping. The girl just scoffed and knocked her shoulder into his as she passed. He didn’t feel it.

It took a moment for him to gather himself, only a moment, before Harry scurried as quick as he could down the hall, away from the intimidating girl, his shoes smacking ominously on the stone floor.

The girl’s steps were utterly silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm experimenting with small chapters. Again, feel free to critique! I'd love to hear what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

“I think I met a ghost,” Harry said around a mouthful of chocolate.

Ron didn’t even look up, so unimpressed he was, “Yeah, Hogwarts has a bunch of those.”

“This was was different, though,” Harry insisted, “I’m not even sure she was really dead it’s just, she gave off this feeling.”

“What kinda feeling?” Ron asked. “Was she all see-through?”

Harry shook his head, “No, it’s – both times I saw her everything got all cold and she didn’t make any noise.”

“You mean she didn’t talk?”

“No, no, like her feet and stuff, completely silent when she moved.”

“Mate,” Ron shook his head, “If she weren’t see-through then she’s no ghost. The other stuff, uh she’s just weird, I guess.”

Harry thought for a moment, then said, “But I’ve not seen her at meals or anything, only twice, when no one else was around.”

“Maybe she’s following you.”

He shuddered, “I hope not, that’d be so... so...”

“Weird?” Ron said.

“Yeah!”

He shrugged and stuffed another pasty into his mouth, “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Harry frowned, “You’re probably right, that she’s some weird girl.”

“See, nothing to worry about,” Ron thought for a moment, “Well, just don’t go off on your own too much and she’ll stay away, I bet.”

Harry hummed in agreement and nibbled on a chocolate.

“So,” the redhead changed the subject, bored of the current one, “Tell me more about this mirror full of your family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be about three times as long. I'm dividing everything along timeskips as my 'thing' so, well, we'll see how that goes. Thank you to everyone who's kudos'd and commented and bookmarked! I hope I can keep you entertained.


	4. Chapter 4

The third time Harry saw the girl, with her midnight hair and crooked teeth, he was in the Hospital Wing after killing Quirrel and banishing Voldemort’s shade.

It was dark, night having fallen hours ago, and he was drifting in and out of sleep with a slow kind of ease. After Professor Dumbledore had talked to him, after Hermione and Ron had visited him, after Madam Pomfrey had checked him over for the fifth time, Harry was sure he would be left alone until his discharge the next morning – he was wrong.

Moonlight poured in from great, arched windows, crawled along the floor towards his bed, and he watched it sleepily. Then he blinked. Where a second before there had been only shadows on ancient stone, the emptiness of the wing, the other beds lined up along the wall, there stood the girl.

Harry recoiled, nearly edging off the side of the bed, but managed to recover and hold onto the sheets with white-knuckled hands. He was certainly awake after that.

The girl didn’t look angry, not like the first two times; instead her mouth was twisted in a curious moue, her eyes narrowed and focused on where he lay, her hands clasped awkwardly in front of her.

“H-how did you get in?” Harry asked softly.

The girl stared, “I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?” He asked. Of course, he blinked again, and she was closer than she was before. “Stop doing that!”

She said nothing, kept her brow furrowed, her lips pursed. The inner sleeves of her robes winked emerald in the pale light, her eyes glinted like chips of glass or stone or ice, and she stood there motionless as that familiar chill spread over his skin.

“What do you want?” Harry asked, trying his best to sound indignant but unable to hide the pleading tone to his voice, “Why are you following me?”

She winked out of existence, no pop of noise or flash of light to signify her departure, just open space where she had been.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Harry yelped and jumped back; she was on his other side, leaning in close, bent over the side of his bed. There were heavy purple smudges under her eyes, tired lines creasing her cheeks, and her shrewd gaze roved over his face.“You came into my compartment,” she said, “People don’t come into my compartment.”

“I’m – I’m sorry?” He stuttered.

She disappeared and reappeared, in the span of a second, sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed, her hair all pulled over one shoulder and her hands set lightly in her lap. “You’re not James Potter,” she said.

“No, I’m Harry.”

“Harry Potter?”

His chest felt tight, like his heart was a bird flinging itself desperately against the bars of its cage, “Yeah.”

The girl was silent, then, “You look like him.”

Harry nodded. Where was this going? He had to be dreaming, he had to! The girl looked solid, not a thing about her was see-through, and yet she was popping around into thin air, jumping all over the place, getting all in his face. He’d been thinking about that girl too much, worrying too much, and now he was dreaming her too.

“You don’t have his eyes,” she tilted her head to the side, “Or his jaw.”

“I have my mother’s eyes,” Harry muttered.

She sneered, “He finally broke Evans down, I suppose.”

“What do you mean by that?” He asked defensively.

“Aww,” she simpered, a fake pout curling her lower lip, “Mummy never told you she hated Daddy’s guts?”

Harry scowled. Why was this girl being so nasty, telling lies about his parents straight to his face? “My parents are dead,” he told her coldly.

“Good!” She spat, expression a beastly glare. “At least Potter got what he deserved.”

It took him aback, how quick she was to react, and it took him a moment before the indignation returned and he said, “Don’t talk about my dad like that!”

Suddenly the girl was nose to nose with him, furious, eyes blazing. “I’ll talk about _James Potter_ however I like!”

The chill intensified, numbed his fingers, toes, and lips, and he realized he could see the girl blurring around the edges, like ink bleeding through parchment in sharp increments. His lungs seized up, wrapping a frigid hand over his neck and squeezing the breath from him; his heart fluttered staccato behind his ribs. The hair on his nape stood on end and, as he stared into cold, clear blue-grey, he saw rage so deep it rooted in her marrow and ran like blood through her veins. She started flickering, a washed out fluorescent bulb on its last legs – she was solid, then transparent, then gone altogether, cycling back-and-forth so rapidly he couldn’t focus on her face.

A beat, where she stilled, her image in greyscale like a newspaper photograph tinged blue, and she winked out again.

Hand on his chest, Harry struggled to calm his pounding heart and gasping lungs. Bloody hell, _bloody hell._ He thought she left, that his nightmare was over, until he caught sight of her crouched in the far corner of the room. On her knees, her back to him, with her hands peeking at her sides like she had them wrapped around herself, she trembled.

Warmth crept slowly back into the Hospital Wing. Pins-and-needles peppered his digits with sparks of ticklish pain, the cold receding from his limbs, and Harry brought the blankets up to his chin with a desperate pull. He was shaking, sweat broke out on his brow, the abject terror washing over him now that he had a chance to really understand what he’d seen.

He’d never had paranormal nightmares before. No, his bad dreams usually featured Vernon or Dudley or high pitched laughter with a spray of bright green light. Besides – he pinched himself, not taking his eyes off the girl – it felt like he was awake.

But ghosts didn’t move like that, didn’t look like that, didn’t fade in and out of sight like that, didn’t change the temperature – they just floated around and talked about their deaths, they were harmless! They weren’t like the horror movies Dudley watched, there weren’t demons or vengeful spirits or anything like that... were there?

Harry jammed his eyes shut. The monstrous anger on the girl’s face was painted on the insides of his eyelids and he couldn’t shake it off. He’d never seen someone look so angry, not his uncle or his aunt, not even Professor Snape.

One deep breath, then another, then he snuck a peek out from underneath his lashes and a sigh of relief escaped him.

The corner was empty. The girl was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your opinions? If you want? Even if you hate it, ha, critique is always welcome here.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry, Hermione, and Ron were sat in a compartment all to themselves on the Hogwarts Express, watching the countryside fly by past the window as Harry recounted what happened that night in the Hospital Wing. His friends were watching him wide-eyed, a hint of guilt tinging Ron’s deep blue gaze as he listened to the extent of his friend’s ordeal.

“Oh Harry,” Hermione said, “Why didn’t you say anything to Professor Dumbledore?”

“There wasn’t really any time,” he shrugged, “I mean, with the feast and everything, and then having to get all our things and board the train...”

“Sounds like no ghost I’ve ever heard of,” Ron said.

“Still,” Hermione insisted, “She could be dangerous!”

“She didn’t hurt me,” said Harry, “Just got kind of mad and yelled and frowned a lot.”

Hermione huffed, “That might not be all she can do. What if she comes after you again?”

“Then I’ll tell Dumbledore-”

“Professor Dumbledore.”

“-Professor Dumbledore about it,” Harry conceded.

It was quiet for a moment, the three trying to wrap their heads around the idea of some sort of magical force that looked like a person, that acted like ghosts did in muggle movies, and was so focused on their resident Boy-Who-Lived.

Ron scrunched his face up, then, like he was thinking particularly hard, and asked, “Hey, what compartment was she in? You know, the first time you saw her?”

Harry thought back, “It was close to the end, second or third from the back, why?”

“Cos Fred and George told me there’s this door that never opens, not even with spells or anything. No one can get into it no matter what they do.”

“You think that’s hers?” Harry asked.

Ron shrugged, “Maybe. It’d make sense, wouldn’t it?”

Hermione cleared her throat, “Well, the only way to know is to go check.”

They all looked at each other, faces pale, and Harry noticed Ron swallow hard. There were still hours to go before they reached King’s Cross and everyone else was already settled in their seats for the journey home; there wasn’t anything stopping them from stepping out for a moment to take a walk down the train. Without a word the three slid from the benches and pulled open the compartment door, sticking their heads out to check for Prefects before filing out into the corridor. Ron behind him, Hermione in back, Harry led them down towards the end of the train to the place he’d seen the girl for the very first time.

When they got there, all clumped together, Ron was that first to reach out for the door handle and Harry noticed some things that hadn’t been there the first time – a thin layer of grime over the paint, a smattering of rust along the top and bottom of the door, a collection of cobwebs in the small nooks and crannies. That wasn’t right, the compartment had looked like all the others when he found it on September first.

“Ron,” he started, “I don’t think-”

The redhead jerked with his full strength, stumbling when the door stayed firmly shut. “This is definitely the one Fred and George told me about,” Ron said. “See how it’s all old looking? Are you sure this is the one you’re talking about, though?”

He wasn’t sure, not after examining the dingy door, but nodded anyway.

“How did you get in? It’s jammed – has been for years.”

Harry stepped forward, then, and gripped the handle. “I just... opened the door.” He slid it open slowly, gently, wincing when it squealed along the track.

“Oh, I didn’t see your wand,” Hermione said. “Did you use a spell?”

He shook his head, too busy examining the inside of the compartment to really pay his friends any attention. It matched the outside with its level of dilapidation, again surprising Harry with the marked difference between past and present, and there was no scary-angry-sad girl in the seat next to the yellowing window. Dust coated everything and the seats looked worn and faded with age. He had to be wrong, he had to have picked the wrong compartment.

Harry took one step in, then two, then the door slammed shut with a clang.

He whirled around and tried to force it back open to no avail, able to hear Hermione and Ron yelling for him on the other side. For a split second he thought they were playing a prank on him, but listening to their frantic voices told him they were just as confused as he was and Harry felt a swell of panic beginning in his throat.

“Harry! Harry, open the door!” Ron cried.

“I can’t!”

“I’ll go find a Prefect!” Hermione’s feet were already pounding away down the corridor before he could respond.

Ron was still yelling but Harry couldn’t understand, couldn’t make out the words, because his friend’s voice was fading out, becoming muffled and far away. He wrenched at the door, harder this time, growing more and more desperate as Ron’s voice disappeared completely. “Ron! Are you there? Ron!?”

That’s when Harry noticed the chill in the air.

Slowly, heart thudding thick behind his ribs, he turned. The compartment was spotless – the window sparkling clean, the upholstery new and bright – and there she was, the girl, sitting contently in the corner seat. Her face was still stern, pale and sharp and offset by the crook in her nose, yet the anger from the hospital wing was nowhere to be found.

“Hello, Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, he's trapped! What will happen next, I wonder?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been told this is quite graphic, in a gory-violent way - if ya'll think of any tags I should add because of this chapter please let me know.

Aster Crowe was fifteen when her heart was very nearly torn, still beating, out from behind the cage of her ribs.

Running, tripping over her own feet and careening into the muddy walls of the passage beneath the Whomping Willow, her breath an icy spray trailing along behind her, she knew it was her end. Her arm hung uselessly at her side, her ankle twisted to the point of unbearable agony, her hair fallen across her eyes and matted with blood, but still she ran.

Never before had she been so afraid. Not when Black and Potter cornered her in the charms corridor and hobbled her with hexes, not when Severus held his potions knife to her face and dared her to speak against Evans even once more in his presence, not when her mother’s owl came to roost in the Hogwarts owlery without a letter and refused to fly back home.

She was screaming, sobbing, it burst forth from her throat and filled the cavern with desperation; it couldn’t drown out the hungry roars that dogged her heels.

Death was a miasma clinging to her every step, clogging in her lungs, stretching tendrils of black to snuff her wavering lumos – it rang deep in her chest like a muggle church bell, haunting and loud, and there was no escape. She tried, Circe, she tried, but one gnarled root twisted its way from the earth and snared her dragging foot and she was finished. Her face slammed into mud, her teeth grinding into her tongue and the dirt in her mouth, and she barely had time to gasp before unforgiving fangs sank into her flesh.

Wildly, no grace in her motion, Aster twisted in its grasp and aimed two concurrent stupefys to its head. They connected and, for a moment, triumph welled within her.

It didn’t last.

The beast shook itself, yowled, and, before she could fire off a Darker spell, the one she and Severus had been working on just forming on her tongue, jaws clamped around her fingers and ripped her wand from her hand – ripped three fingers off along with it. Her screams reached new, core-curdling heights. Both hands were crippled now, but, despite the blood pouring from where her fingers used to be, she took that instant of freedom to catch a root and try to drag herself forward. Faint moonlight shone through the passage opening, metres away but reachable, if she just-

Teeth found purchase once more in the meat of her ankle and Aster lost her grip on salvation.

She wailed, desperately, so high her voice cracked, as she was pulled backwards, back towards the Shack, but no-one came.

No-one knew she was there.

Her chin was scraped bloody over stones, her nails broke as she clawed at the ground for leverage, her robes caught and tore. Aster prayed as fire coursed through her leg and arm and head, as she was yanked up into the main of the Shack and over the rotten hardwood. She prayed to Circe and Hecate, to Frigga and the Morrigan, she even prayed to the muggle Gods.

Nothing happened. No fantastical burst of magic eradicated the monster. No-one came.

Blood and spit dribbled over her lips and trailed to the floor, her chest heaved, every part of her cried out for mercy as those jagged teeth released her. Would it stop? Oh Merlin, was it going to let her go?

Before she could roll, before she could do anything, she heard its paws on either side of her and felt the weight of its body hovering inches above her own. Its breath, hot and pungent, wafted along her neck and ruffled her hair. She stilled. Though she could hardly see in the dim moonlight that crept around boarded-up windows, she didn’t dare close her eyes. What if there was an opening? What if there was a chance, a slim, feeble chance, for her to survive this?

The beast growled against her ear and the sound reverberated harshly through her breaks and bruises. Another whuff of warm, foul breath, and its muzzle was pressed against her shoulder, her neck, the place she imagined a lover might kiss.

Then pain: tearing, ripping pain as teeth like serrated kitchen knives plunged into the soft meat of that spot and jerked her back and forth. She thrashed violently, trying to get away, but one heavy paw landed on her good elbow and pressed down hard. There was an audible snap, her own wet gasp melodic accompaniment, as the bones bent and cracked the wrong way. Both arms, now, both arms useless – how would she defend herself now? One shoulder dislocated, that arm raked like mincemeat by monstrous claws; the other arm bent backward, only two fingers left on that hand; and it had her by the neck.

Everything was fading out, even that dim and dusty moonlight. Cold washed over her, head to toe, taking with it the shrieking agony and leaving behind a hollow ache that ran sluggishly through her veins.Her body limp, head hanging down at an angle, blood poured a river down her front and over her face and pooled thick on the broken floorboards. Her cries petered out to low whimpers – all she could feel, hear, was the lub-dub thrumming of her wavering heart, the rush of blood in her ears, the heat of it under her eyes and coating her mangled hand and arms and foot.

“Please, please,” She realized she was whispered, couldn’t even make herself stop. “Please, please, pleaseplea- please.”

What was she pleading for?

Please let her live? Please let her go?

Please don’t let Severus come down here?

Please forgive her?

Please let her die?

The beast shook her a few more times and she felt flesh peel gently away from bone in a cold haze. At least it didn’t hurt anymore, at least it didn’t-

The sound she made was hardly human as she was flipped over onto her back, the hunk of meat in the beast’s jaws coming away completely with a terrible sucking noise.

She stared.

That was her.

That bloody, pulpy, meaty mess was part of her, part of her body.

The beast ate it – tilted its head back and let that bloody, pulpy, meaty mess slither down its throat.

It was eating her.

“PLEASE!” Her voice broke into nothingness, cracked on desperately shrill tones.“SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!”


	7. Chapter 7

She watched the boy turn, watched his bright eyes widen behind those unfortunate glasses, and she was struck by just how small he was. He was short for his age, looked two or three years too young for Hogwarts, and he absolutely drowned in his Gryffindor robes. The longer she examined him, the more the spectre of James Potter faded into the background. Sure they shared the unruly Potter hair, but there was a lot more Evans in him than she first thought.

He was watching her just as intently despite the fear oozing from his pores; those eyes raked over her, asked questions she couldn’t hear, and Aster felt something raw and burning settle inside her.

It was... calm. She hadn’t been calm in so long.

The boy, Harry, squared his shoulders, swallowed – she watched him struggle with it – and took one more step towards her. “Who are you?” He asked, surprisingly stern and steady.

She wondered if she should answer. So long she had spent aimlessly floating through that passage, through the Shack, through Hogwarts and the halls she once thought of as home, without a single person able to see her. No-one, no student, no professor, not even the great Albus Dumbledore, had ever stopped or stared or responded to her screams. But this boy, this fragile little halfblood, he saw her, and she was drawn to him in turn. What was so special about him? Was he powerful? Did he have some unknown branch of magic stirring in his blood? Did it have to do with that rune carved over his brow? It looked like olde magick, blood magic, no way James Potter had used a ritual on his son – especially if it involved blood.

The boy was still staring at her, waiting for a response, and she didn’t know what to do. Aster didn’t have the answers to the other questions he would ask, had asked that night in the hospital wing, yet this time he only asked her name.

She hadn’t heard her own name in years. Hadn’t been so present, either, able to make so many choices, since that night. She spent so long, drifting, floating, anger and pain and confusion a maelstrom never ending within her. Years lost in a fugue. How many? At least eleven, going by little Potter’s age.

He was still staring, little Potter, still waiting.

“My name is Aster,” she said. She missed her wand. It had always been a comfort, sticking her hands in her sleeves and running her thumb over the wood; without it her hands were awkward and limp in her lap.

He stepped again, coming closer. “Why are you following me?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Clenching his fists – Merlin his hands were bony – the boy scoffed. “That’s what you said last time, and I still don’t know how you follow someone by accident.”

Aster felt her lip twitch, though even she wasn’t sure whether it was a smirk or a frown. Little Potter sure was a caustic thing. “I was angry,” she explained, “When I thought you were your father. It was the first time in a long time I really... noticed... where I was.”

He waited, stared her down, silently urged her to continue.

“I wander. A lot. No-one’s ever seen me before, acknowledged me – I just drift. Then I’d run into you, or you’d run into me, and I wasn’t drifting – I was present. I kept popping awake and you were there, and you were him, and I was so...”

Harry looked lost, his eyebrows drawn together as he thought, and then he asked, softly, “Why do you hate my dad so much?”

An echo of agony, her own cries filled her ears, and Aster’s mouth went dry. “Because he killed me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fairly short one. I wonder when they'll meet next? I wonder what Harry will have to say about Aster's accusation? I'll say again that comments are very welcome, even if they contain harsh critique - I'm here to have fun and improve :)


	8. Chapter 8

Harry hadn’t told anyone what that girl – that ghost – Aster – had said. Not when the compartment door slid back open with a squeak to reveal a pale-faced Ron, not when Hermione came hurrying back with Prefect Percy in tow, certainly not when all three of them began hurling questions his way. He’d brushed them off, told Percy the door just got stuck and they all just overreacted. One pleading look had his two friends agreeing, though they demanded details once they were safely back in their own compartment.

Ron was shaken, sure Harry’d barely gotten out with his life, because apparently he hadn’t been able to hear anything from inside after the door locked. Hermione had that look on her face, the one she got when faced with a difficult essay topic, and asked for every exacting detail.

Harry lied.

He said the girl hadn’t been there, said the door must’ve slid closed by itself with the rocking of the train, said everything inside had been just as musty and dusty and cracked as the outside. They both looked skeptical, but after he shrugged – like it was simply that boring – and kept eye contact – like he was telling the truth – they let it go. After living with the Dursleys for ten years lying was second nature.

The rest of the trip to London he threw ideas around with his friends, all while a bubble of guilt swelled under his tongue. His very first friends, and he was lying straight to their faces. But how could he explain what that girl said? How could he explain that part of him believed her? What kind of son would believe, even a little, such awful things about his own dad?

So he let the questions fly, added some of his own even: Oh, what could the girl want? Was she really a ghost? Did Harry dream their encounter in the hospital wing after all?

He certainly wished it had been a dream, but it hadn’t been – he knew.

Weeks he’d spent going over those encounters with the girl and he was no closer to convincing himself she’d been anything but honest. On the train she’d looked solid, full colour, alive, hadn’t blurred one inch around the edges, and her face had been so... Her eyes had just... Harry saw it, in her posture, in the pinpricks of her pupils; she’d been so sad. It was that look that kept him from denying her outright, kept him thinking of her claim even as he sat locked for the night in Dudley’s second bedroom.

Why would his dad kill a girl? Why would no-one, in all their tales of James Potter, ever mention he was a murderer?

With a sigh he rolled over on the lumpy mattress and pulled the scratchy sheet up to his chin, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible so he could fall asleep. He had no clock in his room – the Dursleys only gave him the barest of essentials – but he knew it was late, so late it was early. The moon was high and fat in the sky, beaming in through the broken slats of the window shade, falling over his face and making it hard to close his eyes. Another day of endless chores waited for him on the other side of sunrise and staying up late never did him any good. Exhaustion made him slow, which made Aunt Petunia angry, which got him hit upside the head, which made him sloppy, which made Uncle Vernon angry, and on and on and on.

Harry missed Hogwarts, he missed his wand, he missed having friends. It had been wonderful, magical, to meet people who liked him and wanted him and thought he was worth something – even if there were gits like Malfoy going around with their noses stuck in the air.

At Number Four, though, Harry Potter was nothing. He was less than nothing, he was a worm smeared on the bottom of his aunt’s shoe or a clump of dirt along the bumper of his uncle’s car. Sure, no-one cared he was the Boy-Who-Lived, but no-one cared period. Couldn’t he have an in-between? Couldn’t he just be normal, with a normal family that loved him and liked him and hadn’t been murdered by a crazed Dark Lord?

Harry sighed again, and noticed with alarm that he was able to see his breath. A chill fell over his shoulders and sank through his thin sheet, and dread prickled along his spine. It felt like those other times when the girl – Aster – had shown up to torment him or scare him or confuse him, but that wasn’t possible. The ghosts couldn’t leave Hogwarts, could they?

What if she wasn’t a ghost? What if she was a spy, an evil witch working for Voldemort who found him and had come to finish him off? Dumbledore said that he would be safe from those who would harm him if only he stayed with his awful relatives, but what if Dumbledore was wrong?

Tense, Harry glanced away from the wall, let his eyes adjust to the dark corners of his room, and a squeak slipped past his clenched teeth.

She was there, standing by the door, facing away from him.

If only the Dursleys hadn’t locked his wand away he would be able to defend himself; blast the laws about doing magic outside of school, he was sure they’d excuse it if it was done in self defence! He expected her to look at him, to throw a spell or, hell, maybe even pull a knife, but she didn’t.

What she did do, though, proved she was a ghost once and for all.

Aster leaned forward, into the door, and her entire front half disappeared through the wood. It wasn’t five seconds later her bottom half followed, and Harry was glued in place. How was she here? How was she here, in a muggle suburb, in a muggle house, in the middle of summer? How had she found him? The ghosts couldn’t leave Hogwarts! Unless Aster was a different type of ghost altogether, but what could she be? She didn’t seem to be a poltergeist like Peeves, and that was the only other type of spirit Harry knew of.

She didn’t come back for a minute and thirty-five seconds.

Maybe she was gone. Maybe she hadn’t even been there in the first place.

That was it, Harry was dreaming. It all made sense. He hadn’t dreamt her before, or any of the other times he saw her, but there was no way she had followed him all the way to Little Whinging.

Still, he didn’t turn back around. He stared at the door, waiting, wondering if she would reappear and destroy his carefully constructed lie.

She did, two minutes and fifteen seconds later.

She came through the wall a few feet to the left of the door, smoothly and seamlessly like she was stepping sideways out of a pool of water, and transported across the room in a blink to stand right by his head. Her frown was deep, highlighted by the moonlight, and her arms were crossed over her chest. “Where are we?” She asked. “And why are you locked in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, a ghost at the Dursley's, wonder how that will end. Your thoughts?


	9. Chapter 9

Aster felt... conflicted. On one hand, learning James Potter’s son was at the mercy of some muggles was hilarious. After years of torment, of seeing Potter strut around Hogwarts like he owned it, of listening to his snide voice hurling insults at her and her fellow Slytherins, it felt like justice. The great and good James Potter dead and gone, and his child locked away like a dirty secret. On the other hand, one curled into a fist at her side, little Potter was suffering.

As hard as it was to accept, Harry wasn’t at fault for his father’s mistakes no matter how similar they looked; he was just a child being hurt. She wanted to hate him, she wanted to unfocus her eyes and see James Potter before her and give him what he deserved. But he was dead, and all the remained was a boy with deep shadows in the hollows of his cheeks.

They were starving him, filthy muggles, she saw it in the bones jutting from his face and the misty sheen to his gaze. How dare they? How dare they harm a child under their care? He was shoved away like trash, into a room with nothing in it but a bed and a plywood desk, his closet filled with clothes not fit for a house elf, his owl locked in her cage, and Aster found herself getting angry. At herself, as well as the muggles.

She wanted it to feel like justice, like freedom and retribution, but it didn’t – it just felt ugly.

Harry had sat up and fixed her with an incredulous stare, his paltry sheet and ratty blanket pooled around his waist, looking more like a puffed up kitten than an irate Gryffindor. He wouldn’t want her pity – at least, she didn’t think he would. Severus never took well to sympathy or soft words, always biting back and sneering his way around any personal topics, and the more she paid attention the more little Potter resembled her old friend.

She relaxed her hands at her sides and sighed before asking, “Why don’t you leave?”

He shrugged. “It’s not that bad – they only lock the door at night, and Dumbledore says I have to stay, that I’m safe here.”

“Safe? Safe from what?”

The boy seemed shocked. “Voldemort.”

Aster flinched. That name, the Taboo, the front page of the Prophet splashed with lists of villages destroyed under his heel. To cover her unease, she scoffed, “And what would the Dark Lord want with a little boy?”

He stilled, and blinked, and his mouth fell open.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You really don’t know?”

A scowl shadowed her eyes and her retort, though it sliced through her first, seemed to make a mark on him. “I’m dead, you really think I keep up on current events?”

“He tried to kill me, when I was a baby. He used the killing curse on my parents and then he used it on me, but it didn’t work. My parents died, but I survived, and Voldemort disappeared.”

“You... repelled the killing curse,” Aster repeated, disbelieving.

Harry nodded.

“That’s impossible, that- no- you couldn’t have!”

He lifted his fringe off of his forehead and revealed that rune, the one she thought had been the remnant of some dark ritual, and said, “He left me this.”

Aster was suddenly nose to nose with him, examining the mark. She reached out and, with one thin finger, traced the scar along Harry’s brow – she could almost feel the warmth of this skin. “It’s... it’s a rune, or at least it looks like one,” she said quietly. “Though I think it’s also the wand movement for the curse.”

Harry scrunched up his nose, then asked, “What rune?”

She traced it again, and the boy shivered as if he could feel her touch. It could just be the wand movement, but no spell ever left a scar in its pattern like that; Aster was convinced it had to mean something more. “Sowilo, or maybe eihwaz – could be either, but I’m leaning more towards the first one.”

“Do- does that mean anything?”

Over in the corner again, she took him in from a distance. “It could.”

“Will you tell me?”

Aster looked away, hair falling over her face in a dark curtain. What was she doing? Why was she being nice to him? His relatives were shit – so what? That wasn’t her problem; nothing was her problem anymore. She was dead! It was his father’s fault, Potter and his friends, and here she was coddling the bastard’s spawn.

Before she could think of a scathing reply, one that would make little Potter stop looking at her like she held answers to great mysteries, a great thundering came barrelling down the hall outside. It stopped on the other side of the door and then something pounded on it, something that sounded like a big, meaty fist. “Boy,” a man’s voice, deep and angry, spat through the wood. “You quiet down in there, you hear? You’re keeping the whole bloody house awake; don’t make me come and shut you up myself!”

Aster watched as the boy’s pallor turned absolutely grey. “I’m s-sorry, Uncle Vernon,” he stuttered.

A growl. “You better be.”

Curious, she drifted into the hallway and watched as a fat, dark-haired man lumbered back away towards an open door, then fit himself through the frame and shut it behind him with more care than she would’ve thought possible.

A blink and she was at the foot of a queen size bed in the most hideous master bedroom she’d ever seen. Granted, she hadn’t seen many master bedrooms, but there was something decidedly ugly about how uniform and muggle this one was. Cream-coloured wallpaper with dull, pink pinstripes; two matching bedside tables upon which sat identical ceramic lamps, the shades crimped and pastel green; bedspread thick and plush, dark blue with flowers in that same dull pink; an oak vanity with a big mirror, an oak chest-of-drawers, an oak door to the closet; and a pair of the most muggle-y muggles Aster had ever seen.

Harry’s fear flashed behind her eyes and Aster sneered. How dare these useless lumps torment the Potter heir? That was her right! She had been wronged so totally by his house, his line, if anyone was going to put such fear into the boy’s heart it would be her!

She watched them shiver under their garish covers, pull them up to their chins, hunch their shoulders up to their ears, and felt grim satisfaction. Could she do more? Her presence in the room was beginning to frost the windows, made their breath puff in visible clouds, had their trembling grow more severe. Her nails dug into her palms and, if she had still been alive, she would be drawing blood.

No, she would wait. She would learn more about little Potter and his stupid muggles and his puckered scar, and then she would deal with everything – in her own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be deviating from canon a bit, for a few things. It's sort of just a 'what I feel like' kind of storyline. I hope that keeps you interested, ha! Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story~


	10. Chapter 10

Harry Potter was kneeling in the dirt, repainting the Dursleys’ garden bench, face twisted into a bitter scowl as he worked the brush, when a flat voice startled him out of his misery.

“Sowilo is the rune of the sun.”

It was Aster. She appeared to be sitting on the bench, not minding the wet paint one bit, but before he could warn her or shove her off, Harry noticed she wasn’t actually touching it – she was hovering half an inch above it. He opened his mouth to protest. Where had she been the past ten hours? Why was she starting up again like no time had passed?

Staring over his head, like she was watching something blurry and far away, she didn’t give him a moment before continuing on. “It can mean loads of things, but the most important are those that relate to purpose and success. It’s used in wards against harmful intent or opinions, or in old rituals to keep one steady on their path. Eihwaz is the yew rune, the rune of the mysteries of life and death. Some have sought to understand immortality with its secrets, but many more use it on their path towards enlightenment or to liberate themselves from fear. It’s used in a few dark rituals, but in itself isn’t dangerous or evil.” She met his eye, then. A crease formed between her eyebrows and her hand twitched as though she wanted to reach out to him – she didn’t. “You asked,” she said. “I decided to answer.”

It was uncomfortable, Harry realized, to see someone dressed in Hogwarts’ robes smack in the middle of Little Whinging. He shook his head, sat back on his heels, and said, “I’m not going to remember all that.”

She was gone from her seat in an instant and, before Harry could look around or wonder where she’d gone, appeared crouched on his right, her foot phasing through the paint can. “I’ll just tell you again.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “When you have some parchment handy to write it down.”

Part of him was still afraid someone would notice Aster, that Aunt Petunia would come out waving her frying pan and accuse him of doing some nefarious magic to teleport a stranger into her yard, but no commotion came. With a sigh, he dipped his brush in the paint and continued his chore, keeping one wary eye on the ghost the whole time. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

Harry huffed. “Is there anything you do know?”

She snarled.

The cold that followed was actually a pleasant reprieve from the summer heat.

Surprisingly, instead of flickering away or snapping at him, Aster seemed to bite back her anger and swallow whatever harsh words were building in her throat. “I know these muggles are scum,” she said. “I know you shouldn’t be here, not if you’re as important as you say.”

“Dumbledore-”

“The Dark Lord was a scourge on the world. His crusade was pointless, just a massacre of good magical blood and a way to gain power for himself – Dark or Light, it didn’t matter, everyone knew someone who got themselves slaughtered.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you told the truth-”

“I did!”

“-There should be no shortage of magical families clamouring to take you in. You shouldn’t have to stay here, with these... _worms_.”

Harry laughed, shocking himself, at the face Aster made as she thought of his relatives. Then, from behind him, he heard the back door slam open and Aunt Petunia yell, “What are you laughing about, Boy? Get back to work!”

He froze, wondered if she would come out and give him a slap, but when the door closed and no footsteps came his way Harry relaxed. Slowly, he kept painting. “Dumbledore said I have to stay here because there are blood wards that protect me from Voldemort and his followers,” he explained softly. “And the blood wards are tied to my aunt so I have to be near her.”

Aster scoffed, “Sounds like dragonshit to me.”

“It’s not,” he insisted. “My mum died to save my life, which gives me this protection so Voldemort can’t touch me, and because of her- her sacrifice, that protection extends to her family. Petunia is her sister, so living here means that protection hides me.”

“Blood wards are strong, but they need magical blood to work right – you’re the only thing anchoring these wards here,” Aster said matter-of-factly. “And what are you talking about ‘the Dark Lord can’t touch you’, what do you mean?”

So Harry explained, making sure to keep his voice a whisper so his aunt wouldn’t come back out and yell some more; he explained about the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone, about suspecting Snape, about the mirror of Erised; he explained about cerberus and the trap door, about the devil’s snare and the flying keys, about the chess game and the potions riddle; finally, he explained about meeting Quirrell, how Voldemort was on the back of his head under his turban, and how just touching his skin made the man disintegrate into dust. “It’s my mum’s protection that did it, that killed Quirrell and made Voldemort run away, see?”

Aster was quiet, not looking at him, and giving her full attention to the ground between her feet, her cheeks pale. “It’s a good story,” she said, when Harry was almost completely done painting the bench. “But it doesn’t make much sense.”

“You think I’d lie about all of that?”

“No, no.” She waved her hand. “I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but your mad quest isn’t the part I’m talking about. I mean Evans’ death giving you some great power the Dark Lord can’t fight.”

Harry’s face hardened. “She died for me, you don’t get to-”

“Do you really think your mum’s the only mum who died protecting her baby? In the whole war?”

Harry had never thought about that before. Of course there had to be more mums who gave everything for their kid, but if that were the case, why did nobody else have the same kind of protection he did? Was it because it was Voldemort himself who did it? Was it because Voldemort had been after him specifically and Lily Potter shielded him?

There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. If a ghost could think of this, a teenage ghost who never even graduated, why hadn’t it occurred to Dumbledore?

What if it had, and Dumbledore just... lied?

Gulping past a lump in his throat, Harry turned to ask... he didn’t know what he wanted to ask. He didn’t know if he wanted to yell at Aster or cry or demand she explain what she was getting at properly, but he didn’t get a chance to do any of those things.

When he looked, Aster was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we get into me playing fast and loose with magical canon. Hopefully I continue to make sense :P


	11. Chapter 11

“Oi, look who it is – snivelling Snivellus, trailing grease wherever he goes!”

Aster flinched as Potter and his friends breezed past her in the corridor, ignoring her completely to surround Severus who was walking only a few paces behind. They’d been in step only moments before, but he’d fallen back to look through his bag and, of course, with their luck, that’s when _the Marauders_ came tearing around the corner. What a stupid name. It wasn’t just the four of them, either, but a gaggle of other Gryffindors from their year, too. Mostly girls, they tittered behind their hands like a flock of dimwitted birds and chattered about how _good-looking_ and _charming_ and _funny_ Black and Potter were.

It made her sick.

Sliding her way silently through the growing crowd, Aster supposed she should count herself lucky. She was almost as big a target as Severus was, but they hadn’t spared her a second look, too fixated they were on tormenting their favourite victim.

Wand tight in her fist, she edged through her ‘peers’ towards the open space cleared for the coming fight. Merlin, it wouldn’t even be a fight, not four against one.

Four against two, though...

“Look at him!” Black crowed. “Has he got holes in his robes? He does!”

Just near the hem, and it wasn’t his fault. She’d written to her mother about household charms just two days ago; when she wrote back, Aster was going to give Severus a list. Anything to give those bastards less reason to pick on him.

“What’d you expect, Sirius?” Potter laughed. “He doesn’t even have the money to buy shampoo.”

Pettigrew had a delighted look on his pudgy face, chuckling, pointing his wand towards Severus just like the other two. Lupin was the only one not joining in, choosing instead to stand off to the side and look concerned. Aster almost found that more despicable; too afraid to stand up to his bullying, bastard friends, he just looked the other way.

Where were the professors? Surely they had to notice the commotion? Surely they had to realize nearly all the third year Gryffindors weren’t present for lunch?

Potter knocked Severus’ bag from his hands with a charm, spilling his books all over the stone floor and kicking a few back at him. Severus had his wand up, his bony knuckles going white.

“Aw, look,” Black crooned. “Little Snivellus thinks he can take us on.” He twirled his wand over his fingers and shot a stinging hex at Severus’ feet, making her friend trip and sprawl next to his belongings. Everyone laughed, a roar that engulfed them yet didn’t drown out the taunts still spewing from Black’s lips. “Ickle Snivellus, where’s your hag?”

That was her, she was the hag.

“Not here to protect you, is she?” He cackled, elbowing Potter, both of them wearing grins that split their faces ear to ear. “C’mon James, show him his place.”

She pushed her way through the couple Gryffindors in her way just as Potter turned his wrist – that stupid flourish he gave all his spells – and wrapped his mouth around an incantation.

She didn’t give him the chance to finish.

“STUPEFY!” It was the highest level spell she could get right every time. Her anger bubbling over, Aster had shoved as much power as she could into her attack, and grinned savagely when it laid Potter flat out on his back.

No-one was laughing anymore; it was so silent she thought she’d be able to hear a pin drop, the only sound her ragged breathing echoing in the shocked quiet.

Aster watched, gleefully, as Potter didn’t move. Severus quickly shoved his things back into his bag with the opportunity her distraction gave, scrabbling to stand and point his wand back at his tormentors.

The gathered Gryffindors were staring at her, backing away as though afraid she’d turn her wand on them next, as though they’d never seen a third year knock someone out with a fifth year spell before.

“You bitch!” Black snarled as he stalked towards her, face thunderous. She wasn’t even able to take a step before he hit her with the knockback jinx.

The world went spinning. Her stomach was in her throat as she tumbled through the air, her arms flailing, her hair wild and in her mouth. She barely managed to keep her wand in her hand, but it didn’t matter much, since a second later her skull collided with the wall and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have a few more flashback chapters of their school days and a more complete description of her death interspersed in the story. Keep it like those em dashes and commas, like fic seasoning. Thank you so much if you've left a comment or a kudos or bookmarked or subscribed, it really means a lot~


	12. Chapter 12

“There’s a house elf stealing your mail.”

Harry jumped, slapping one hand over his mouth to stifle his surprised squeak. She kept on just popping up at the worst times – in the middle of the night, during his chores, and now when he was in the middle of cooking supper. She showed up, said confusing things, and never gave him a chance to follow up or ask questions or really think about what she was going on about; he was getting frustrated.

Quickly, from the corner of his eye, he checked to make sure his relatives weren’t paying him any mind. They weren’t. Uncle Vernon and Dudley were in the living room watching something on the telly and Aunt Petunia was fussing around setting the dining room table, all of them perfectly content to ignore his very existence as he slaved over their meal.

“You have to stop doing that,” he hissed, only a little louder than a breath of air.

“Doing what?” She was on his other side, lips quirked slyly.

Harry frowned, checked again over his shoulder, then whispered, “I can’t talk right now.”

“Oh, I figured,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know.”

That’s right, she said... she said a ‘house elf’ was stealing his mail. What did that mean? Wait – stealing his mail? He was getting mail? Something was stealing it, some sort of elf, and that’s why he wasn’t getting anything? His friends hadn’t forgotten him after all? He shot her a hard look, one part pleading, two parts annoyance, nearly-not-quite begging her to keep talking, to give him more information, and all she did was cross her arms. He couldn’t risk voicing his questions, not all the ones he had – it would be too loud, take too long – but he was aching with curiosity. What was a house elf? How was it stealing his letters?

“Boy!” His aunt’s yell knocked him out of his thoughts. “It’s time for supper – hurry up and put it on the table.”

His relatives were having steak-and-ale pie with mash and buttery green beans on the side, then mince tarts for dessert. Everything _lovingly_ prepared by his own hands. Harry thought it was a bit too warm, a little too heavy, in the summer months, but his opinion didn’t count for much. It’s not like he got to eat any of it.

After placing the dishes in the centre of the table and getting a swat to the back of the head for dawdling, Harry sat himself at the kitchen counter to wait. Aunt Petunia didn’t take long. She stalked into the room, pulled a plate from the refrigerator, and practically threw it down in front of him – his dinner, a piece of cold bread, a chunk of cheese, and a lump of congealed drippings from the breakfast bacon.

“Eat,” Petunia spat. “Then off to your room. And I don’t want to hear any of your mumbling tonight, understand?”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he replied.

She nodded, once, decisively, then walked with put-upon grace back to her family at the dining table.

He saw Aster standing next to them, face blank as she looked between him and the spread he wasn’t allowed to touch, and wondered what she was thinking. She probably thought he deserved what he got, if what she said was true – if his dad really had...

Harry listened as his relatives sat down, as the clinking of cutlery against plates merged with his uncle’s bellowing voice when he started on again about the Masons, and he _hated_. It simmered under his skin and cracked between his teeth, and he should have known better. He shouldn’t let it bother him, he shouldn’t pay attention, he shouldn’t care that his only family in the world treated him like... like nothing. It’d been that way since before he could remember and, until Hogwarts, he hadn’t known anything else – it was just his life.

He thought he’d long gotten over the injustice, the anger, the unbridled sadness that would well up in his chest and threaten to drown him, but he’d gotten a taste now, a taste of what family actually felt like.

He wanted it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say about this one. Thank you, again, to everyone who's left feedback or kudos. Have any ideas for things that could happen in the fic? Any theories? I'd love to hear!


	13. Chapter 13

Aster watched.

For three days she stayed out of the boy’s sight, hid around corners, peered through cracked doors, phased through walls, and she watched.

She watched as little Potter did the cooking, the cleaning, and the yard work.

She watched him get woken up at six in the morning, every morning, and get locked back into his room at seven thirty at night, every night, with the hours between filled with nothing but shouts and slaps and endless chores.

She watched him slave away in the sweltering heat and the pouring rain, she watched him be assigned the same tasks over and over and over again to the point where there just _wasn’t_ a point anymore.

She watched what happened when he didn’t get his tasks done, when he burnt the bacon, when he cracked a glass, how his aunt would hit him with a cast iron pan or swat him with the flat of a knife or pinch him until bruises formed on his skin.

She watched as his spirit wasn’t broken, even through the awful conditions he lived in, even though he had no contact with the magical world while confined by Number Four Privet Drive. His sarcasm, his daydreams, his open kindness to his owl, Aster saw it all and knew he was stronger than his father had ever been.

Still, she watched his uncle’s hand move for his belt more than once, like the man was used to pulling it off quickly whenever little Potter did something wrong within his sight, and she was sure the only thing that kept the boy from true beatings was the threat of magical retaliation.

She wondered why he didn’t threaten them more often, why he allowed the treatment he did get, when his relatives were scared enough to change anything about their behaviour at all.

She wondered why he didn’t try to do anything to them, anything at all. Surely he had instances of accidental magic? Why hadn’t he tried to harness that? Aster knew it was uncommon, but she’d been able to do it, and – even though she hated to admit it – Potter and Evans had both been magically powerful, so why didn’t he just... give them a little shove?

She wondered how things had been before Hogwarts. If he used the threat of magic to protect himself, however little, now, what had he done before? What had his _family_ done to him in the years before little Potter knew he was a wizard?

She didn’t have to wonder, not really. Not with how he flinched, not with how short and skinny he was.

She found herself clenching her fists, digging her nails into her palms, glaring daggers into the Dursleys’ backs.

She found herself, those three days and two nights, relishing in how they would shiver when she got too close, smiling when they would check frantically over their shoulders, enjoying the fear she fostered in their tiny minds.

She found herself wanting to protect little Potter from the beasts he lived with.

She found herself feeling for him.

She found herself hating for him.

She knew, as she watched and wondered and found those unpleasant answers, that Harry Potter was nothing like his father, he wasn’t even all that much like his mother.

He was just Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the rules of magic are gonna get bent a bit in this fic, just because I can. Also, you may not agree with Aster's perception of her past classmates - that's perfectly okay, she's not exactly unbiased.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, like Aster's death chapter, is more graphic than the others. If you want to skip, I'll summarize what happens in the end note.

Harry woke to a bloodcurdling scream.

He barely managed to keep himself from shouting in fear and surprise, his heart thudding right through his ribs with the force of a jackhammer. Shooting up in bed, he looked frantically around his room for the source of the noise. God, his aunt and uncle would blame him for the commotion – he was sure to get a beating. It was awful, something had to be wrong for a noise like that to be made.

Was it Hedwig? Had she gotten her talons stuck around the cage bars again? No, his eyes found her and she was perfectly fine, head tucked under her wing as she ruffled her feathers.

Was someone hurt? Outside, maybe? No, no it was too loud to be out on the street.

The scream was cut through, silenced with a choke, and thick sobs rose in its wake. He saw, then, in the dark of the room, a mass huddled in the far corner near the closet.

What was happening? What was going on?

The mass twitched, each wet cry punctuated with a jerk of a limb, and that’s when Harry realized what it had to be, why his uncle hadn’t come blasting in demanding an explanation.

Aster.

“Please, please, _please_ ,” she whimpered, her voice shaking and breaking and carried on a wave of something hot and watery. It sounded like she was gargling, like liquid was spilling out of her throat as she begged, “Please, please, _stop_ – help – _please_.”

His pulse calmed down, fear ratcheting down a notch the longer he was awake, the longer he had to realize what was happening. At least, sort of realize. He didn’t know why Aster was crying, after all.

She was caustic and angry and sneered in his face and made him doubt his own dead parents, but she was so obviously hurt. Could ghosts get hurt? Harry remembered the hospital wing, how she’d fuzzed around the edges like telly static and teleported to the corner, and figured this was the same thing. If only he knew what that thing was.

He drew the covers off over his legs but didn’t move to get out of bed, still unsure exactly what he should do. Aster had been so angry last time she curled up and shook; had she gotten that angry again? Though, then, she hadn’t made a sound.

He listened, mouth dry, as her body contorted and her damp whimpers raised to desperate wails. She wasn’t even making sense, just a litany of nonsense with a few _no_ s and _please_ s and _help_ s thrown in spilling free like a waterfall. It was cold enough for Harry to see his breath, like she always made it, but there was something new spreading over his room in a nauseating cloud – a smell, sick and sweet, cloying and metallic, so strong he could taste it on the back of his tongue. Blood.

“Aster?” Harry whispered.

She didn’t respond.

Quietly, slowly, because he couldn’t risk waking his relatives and having to face their punishments, he slid off the edge of the bed and tip-toed towards the huddled figure. The closer he got the stronger the smell became and, as his eyes adjusted, his stomach flipped over in disgust. There was blood everywhere. Not red, not in the dark of night, but inky black with a crimson sheen where the moonlight glanced off it. It pooled underneath her, seeped between the floorboards, sprayed up the wall and flecked on the ceiling; so much blood, too much for one person.

His heartbeat, which had just calmed, skyrocketed. Ghosts didn’t bleed. Ghosts didn’t bleed! What happened? How did she get hurt? Was she dying? Could ghosts die? Logic said no, but the blood said differently.

He wasn’t careful enough and, when he moved again, he stepped in it. He felt it, cold as ice, felt the blood cling to his skin and stain it, but when he darted back he left no footprint. Shivering, he stared. It had been so real.

Aster just wailed, keened like a dying animal, and dropped on her side with a damp thud. She made an impression in the blood, it soaked into her clothes and hair – her clothes which were more like rags, with great, jagged rips running the length of her body, revealing deep wounds rent in her back. He still couldn’t see her face.

“Aster.” More frantically he hissed, and then he went and crouched at her side.

She spasmed, her arm – her good arm, because the other was bent at a truly sickening angle – flew through him and he felt a hint of resistance, like he was water she punched through.

God, he could hardly breathe. He wanted to run, to leave the house completely, put her screams out of his ears and scrub the gore from his mind, but he couldn’t. She was hurting, she was scared – he wouldn’t abandon her. “Aster, _Aster_? Please say something.” Tears blurred his vision, slipped off his chin, as he reached out with one shaking hand as if he could offer comfort, as if he could touch her at all.

He couldn’t even hear himself think, not even as she quieted back into soft sobs and gurgles, there was this rushing noise in his head that was overwhelming. He was too cold, or was he warm? It was mixing up, getting all confused.

Aster stilled and was quiet. Then, slowly and, it looked, painfully, turned face up and looked at him with eyes that shone eerily in the dark.

Harry fell back in terror. It was hard to see, but her chest was a mess and, God, was that bone? Bone peaked out and something quivered in the gore – that’s all he could make out, gore and meat and-

He gagged, bile flowed into his mouth and he barely swallowed it back.

There was a horrible mass just missing from her neck and shoulder, a horrible nothing with ragged edges and strings of... of flesh barely clinging to the rest of her. And the blood, the blood. It was smeared over her face, dribbling steadily from her mouth, and her entire body was covered in it – wet and tacky and black.

“Help me,” she gasped, a bubble popping between her lips. “Please, _please_.” Her chest, what was left of it, heaved, and her eyes darted wildly past him and widened that much further, and he actually checked to make sure something monstrous hadn’t climbed in through the window. “It’s- _he’s_ \- _it’s_ coming,” she gurgled. “Help – no, _run_! Wait – _no_ – help – run! _Run_!” Her words ended in a bloody, messy cough, and as she hacked, bits fell and flew and sprayed.

Harry was frozen. Water ran constant down his cheeks, his hands clapped over his mouth to muffle his own sobs, his heart nearly jumping out of his body with how hard it was pounding. This was Aster’s death? This was how she died? Screaming and bloody and torn to pieces? In so much pain, drowning in her own blood? This is was his fath- _James Potter_ did to her? How, how could a human being do that to another? Physically, how was it possible? How could... what... how did...

He sucked air like he never breathed before and, weakly, slowly, moved back to Aster’s side.

She wasn’t screaming anymore, wasn’t sobbing, she just trembled and breathed those gurgling breaths and stared, unseeing, past his head. Tears clung to her lashes and mixed with the blood marring her pale skin, hardly washing a speck of it away so thick it was on her face. Her arm – the good one – lay out from her body and Harry noticed some of her fingers were missing, gristle and bone peaking out of the gash where they used to be.

Harry, sniffling as quietly as he could, gently curled his hand around Aster’s mangled one. He wasn’t sure what made him try – he didn’t expect it to work, to be able to feel her like a living person, but it did. Cold, just like her blood, but solid, her hand was heavy in his own. A twitch, her remaining digits moved against his palm, her thumb hooked over his pinkie, and they were holding on.

Aster said nothing.

He sat there, knees drenched in blood that left no stain on him, until he fell asleep. No longer sobbing, or gasping, or feeling afraid, he cried silently in the dark and dreamed no dreams.

When morning came he was lying alone on a bloodless floor, his hand holding nothing but air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aster experiences her final moments and Harry is there to watch. He is horrified by her injuries and terrified that his own father could have done something so heinous. Aster is delirious and lost in agony - she doesn't recognize Harry and begs him to help her, or run. Harry discovers he is able to touch Aster and stays with her, holding her hand until he falls asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

It had been a full week since he’d seen Aster. He hadn’t felt her particular chill, hadn’t caught a glimpse of her robes, hadn’t heard her cutting voice throw his entire world upside down since that night in his room. That night, he knew, he saw her die.

Harry dreamt of it, after. He dreamt of the sickly sweet smell, the shadows that clung to mangled flesh, excruciating screams, and a broken hand cupped mercifully in his own.

He didn’t sleep well, the nights leading up to his birthday, no, he didn’t feel all that well either. Aunt Petunia hit him, threatened to have Vernon lash him, when he was sick in the sink because the image of Aster’s agony came rushing back to him out of nowhere.

His twelfth birthday was spent washing his uncle’s car, mowing the lawn, pruning the rose bushes, spreading manure over his aunt’s flower beds, and repainting the garden bench a second time. He knew he was being kept out of the house, not only because of the ‘disgusting mess’ he’d made the day previously, but because of the dinner party his relatives were hosting that night – something for his uncle’s work, a deal or a merger or something like that. The weather was dreadfully hot, even in the evening as it was, and sweat beaded on his forehead and the back of his neck as he worked, his mind dancing back towards the subject of his ghostly visitor.

Despite her sarcastic, biting nature, he missed her. She was funny, sometimes, and she told him things that made him think, like how his scar looked like a rune or how the story Dumbledore gave him didn’t make much sense, but he also never wanted to watch her die ever again. What if he had to? What if she was trapped in some death loop, reliving the pain over and over, forcing him to experience it with her?

That’s when he felt a prickle on his spine, like someone was watching him. Was it Aster? Was she back?

Harry darted a look over his shoulder, back to the house, out to the street, but it wasn’t until he examined the hedge that he noticed something. A pair of eyes, bulbous and green, stared out from the leaves. He reared back. That wasn’t Aster – those weren’t human eyes.

Someone slammed the back door open before he could do anything and he watched, perturbed, as those large eyes blinked and disappeared.

“Put that away and get in here, quickly!” It was his aunt.

Harry did as she asked, put the paint and paintbrush away in the garage, then gratefully entered the air conditioned kitchen where Aunt Petunia, wearing a flattering salmon cocktail dress, stood with her hands on her hips.

“Stay on the newspaper,” she snapped and pointed to a plate on the kitchen table, “And eat, now! The Masons will be here any moment.”

He washed his hands then sat to scarf down his piece of bread and lump of cheese in record time, wondering all the while about the odd pair of eyes in the hedge. The smell of roast pork wafted from the oven, there was a great pudding on top of the refrigerator with whipped cream and sugared violets, and Harry’s stomach rumbled around his tiny meal. He missed Hogwarts suppers like burning.

When he was finished, Aunt Petunia shooed him off to his room and, as he passed the doorway to the living room, he spotted Uncle Vernon and Dudley in their ties and dinner jackets looking for all the world like a pair of waiters at some fancy restaurant. He was at the top of the stairs when the doorbell rang and his uncle’s face appeared at the bottom, dark and furious.

“Remember, Boy,” he said, one fat finger jabbing up at him. “One sound – just one – you’ll be sorry.”

Harry moved silently through the hall and into his room, very deliberately not looking at the corner near the closet, ready to flop down for another restless night.

Except he couldn’t; there was something on his bed.

It – he – they? – were a little creature, about three feet high, with bat-like ears and green eyes the size of tennis balls. Was this who had been staring out from the hedge?

“This is the house elf.”

Harry whirled around. “Aster,” he breathed. “Where have you been? Are you alright?”

She looked tired, more so than usual, her icy-grey eyes refusing to meet his as she rubbed her arm. “I’m- I’m better.”

Whole again, at least, standing tall with her shining hair and pristine robes, Harry took in her uninjured state and very nearly forgot about the creature. At least, until it – he – they? – spoke.

“Harry Potter!” The creature said, voice high pitched and loud enough Harry was sure they’d hear it downstairs. “So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir, such an honour it is...”

Aster was beside him, then, and he was still soaking up the fact that she was... she was... not alive, but not actively dying. Aster gestured to the – house elf? That’s what Aster said the creature was – house elf and made a little ‘go on’ motion. Oh, he should probably reply.

“Um, thank you.” Wait, didn’t Aster say a house elf was stealing his mail? Was this that house elf? Aster said ‘this is _the_ house elf’, so he bet it was. What was a house elf, anyway? He wanted to ask Aster but didn’t want to look like he was talking to thin air; Harry looked at her, wide eyed.

She sighed. “House elves are servants. They’re magically bound to a witch or wizard or a family and have to follow their orders. They take care of things people don’t want to think about, like cooking and cleaning and minding babies.”

A servant? Wizards had servants? Wizards had servants who stole people’s mail?

The house elf was still look at him expectantly, Harry realized, so he asked, “Who are you?”

“Dobby, sir. Just Dobby. Dobby the house elf.”

“Not that I’m not pleased to meet you,” Harry said quietly, “But this isn’t exactly the best time. Is there any particular reason you’re here?” Besides stealing my mail, he didn’t say. Oh, he wanted to, but a more calculating part of him said to get more information first.

Aster pursed her lips.

“Oh yes, sir,” Dobby said earnestly. “Dobby has come to tell you, sir... oh, it’s difficult to explain, sir... Dobby wonders where to begin...”

Harry pointed to the bed, about to tell Dobby to sit down, when Aster started shaking her head. What? Why? He was just trying to be polite. Harry frowned slightly, and decided to go ahead anyway. “You can sit, if you want.”

To his horror, the elf burst into noisy tears. “Sit _d-down_!” He wailed. “Never... never ever...”

“I told you,” Aster said.

“Did I offend him?” Harry hissed, nervous his relatives and their guests would hear the crying.

She rolled her eyes. “No, you’re being too nice. People aren’t nice to house elves. You probably shocked him.”

“That’s awful,” he said.

Dobby hiccoughed and wailed louder, “Dobby is sorry! Dobby doesn’t mean-”

“Not you!” Harry rushed to assure him. “I just meant, uh, I just figured you must not be treated very well, to react like that.”

Dobby’s lower lip quivered. “Dobby has never – never _ever_ – been asked to sit by a wizard – like an _equal_!”

“Shhh, shh, please, you have to be quiet.”

The house elf sat and sniffled, calming himself, then looked up at Harry with watery adoration. It made him a little uncomfortable.

“Honestly, most elves don’t mind all that much,” Aster explained when she appeared next to Dobby, bending down to examine him. “He does seem a little... odd.”

Harry gave her an incredulous look. Not mind being a servant? How could someone not mind being treated so poorly? He shook his head and, trying to lighten the mood, turned to the elf. “You can’t have met any decent wizards, then.”

Aster rolled her eyes and slumped exaggeratedly.

Dobby, meanwhile, started shaking his head. Then, without warning, lept up and banged his head repeatedly on the window, shouting, “Bad Dobby, Bad Dobby!”

“What- what are you doing?” Harry hissed, springing up and pulling the elf back down onto the bed. Hedwig had woken up with a loud screech and was flapping her wings against the bars of her cage.

“Dobby had to punish himself, sir,” said the now cross-eyed elf. “Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir.”

“Do they know you’re here?” Harry asked. 

Dobby shuddered. “Oh no, sir, no... Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir-”

“Won’t they notice if you do that? Shut your ears in the oven door?”

“Dobby doubts it, sir. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something. They lets Dobby get on with it, sometimes they remind me to do extra punishments...”

“But why don’t you leave? Escape?”

“He can’t,” Aster said, like Harry was an idiot.

At the same time, Dobby explained, “A house elf must be set free, sir, and the family will never, ever do that. Dobby will be with the family ‘til he dies, sir...”

Aster was okay with this? She was talking like this was normal! This couldn’t be normal, no one could treat anyone... Harry thought of the Dursleys. No, not even the Dursleys were that bad. “Can’t anyone help you? Can’t I?”

Harry immediately wished he kept his mouth shut, because Dobby started wailing again.

“What did I do?” He asked Aster.

“You’re being too nice! I told you!”

“How do I stop him?”

“Order him,” she said.

“I can’t do that, I-”

Dobby was still sobbing. “Harry Potter asks if he can _help_ Dobby! Dobby has _never_...”

“Do you want your uncle coming up here?” Aster went on, glancing at the door like she knew something Harry didn’t. “No? Then order him.”

“I don’t know how to do that.” Harry was at an utter loss. “I can’t yell, he’s loud enough!”

“Be firm, stern, just... act like you’re doing that thing! When you’re learning to fly, you tell your broom ‘up’, yeah?”

Harry nodded.

“Sound like that.”

Harry fixed Dobby – still blubbering – with his most stoic face and, cold as he could, bit out, “Dobby, be quiet!”

The elf shut up.

Harry immediately felt awful.

Apparently Aster noticed, for she said, “If you apologize, he’ll start at it again.”

Harry moved to sit next to Dobby on the bed, and Dobby flinched from his side. He couldn’t do it. “Dobby,” Harry whispered, “Dobby, I’m sorry, okay? I really am, but you have to whisper. Please. If you keep being so loud my relatives will- they’ll punish me, you understand?” He really didn’t want to think about what would happen if he ruined Uncle Vernon’s dinner party.

Dobby looked at him with those big, teary eyes, an expression of pure horror plastered on his face. “Punish Harry Potter, sir?”

Harry fidgeted, his chest going all squirmy like it was full of eels. He didn’t like talking about his relatives and the things they did. “Yes, punish Harry Potter. I’m really sorry I snapped at you, could you- you think you could forgive me?”

Aster groaned, long and loud. “Oh Circe, you’re fucking hopeless!”

The elf sniffed again but thankfully kept his voice to a murmur. “Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby... Harry Potter asks for Dobby’s forgiveness... Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but your _goodness_... Dobby never knew... There is nothing to forgive, sir.”

Harry shifted where he sat, sighed, then asked, “Why are you here, Dobby?”

“Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, sir,” he whispered reverently. “To warn him, to tell him Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts!”

Aster was suddenly sitting on Dobby’s other side, peering around the elf and fixing Harry with an inscrutable expression.

Harry, though, was getting frustrated. “I’ve got to go back, it’s all that’s keeping me going-”

Aster looked away.

“-and I don’t belong here. I belong there, in your world, with magic.”

“No, no, _no_ ,” Dobby pleaded softly, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped against his face. “Harry Potter must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good, to lose. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger.”

“But I’m _not_ safe here,” Harry hissed.

Dobby paled. “Is that having to do with how Harry Potter keeps talking to nothing, sir?”

He paused, then said, “No, no that’s... that’s my friend, no one else can see her. My relatives, they’re the danger.”

“An invisible friend, sir?”

Harry shot Aster a desperate look, and she seemed to think for a moment before shrugging. He decided it didn’t really matter if this house elf knew because he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone; if he did, he’d have to admit to visiting Harry. “She’s a ghost, a... a different type of ghost.”

“Mister Harry Potter, sir, can’t be trusting mysterious spirits, sir, they-”

“She’s my friend, Dobby, the only one I’ve had all summer since you’ve been stealing my letters.”

“Harry Potter knows about that?” The elf croaked.

“Yes, Harry Potter knows about that. Why? Why have you been stealing my letters?”

A bundle appeared in Dobby’s hand and the elf wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You mustn’t be angry, sir... Dobby hoped... Dobby thought if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him, he wouldn’t be wanting to go back to school.”

“What’s going to be happening at school, Dobby?”

“There’s a plot, a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year,” the elf whispered, trembling. “Dobby has known about it for months. Harry Potter mustn’t go back, he’ll be in peril, grave peril. Harry Potter is too important to risk.”

“What’s going to happen?” Harry asked again, more intently. “Who’s plotting these things?”

Dobby made a funny noise and, for a heart-stopping second, Harry thought he would start banging his head off the window again. He didn’t. Instead, the elf shoved his fingers into his mouth and bit down – hard.

“No, no don’t do that!”

“It has to be his family,” Aster spoke up. “He has to have been told to keep quiet about it. It’s remarkable, really, that he’s even here, it must be painful for him to skirt around an order like that.” She paused, then said, “Ask if he can tell you who’s _not_ doing the plotting.”

“Dobby, Dobby, okay.” God, the elf’s hand was bleeding pretty badly. Did he have anything that could bandage it? His shirt. Harry started ripping a strip off the bottom and kept talking. “I know you can’t tell me directly, but can you tell me who it’s not? Hang on, it’s not Volde-”

“Speak not the name, sir,” Dobby moaned, his hands clasped tight over his bat ears. “Speak not the name!”

Harry sucked his teeth. “It’s not You-Know-Who, is it?”

“Not _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_ , sir, not _him_ ,” Dobby said, but his emphasis seemed to be a hint.

Harry was completely lost, but held out the strip of cloth and said, “Here, wrap your hand with this, please.”

Dobby blubbered – quietly – and did so. “Harry Potter is so kind, sir, so kind to Dobby...”

“A Death Eater,” Aster said. “If it’s not You-Know-Who himself, it has to be a Death Eater.”

“Is it a Death Eater, Dobby? The one plotting, are they a Death Eater?”

Dobby squeaked, then, and bent two of his fingers all the way back on his hand with a sickening _crack_. However, he did nod.

Harry felt ill, watching him do that, but at least they were on the right track.

“Ask if they’re in Azkaban,” Aster told him, her eyes gleaming with interest.

“What’s Azkaban?”

Dobby squeaked again. “Is – is Harry Potter’s friend talking to him, sir?”

Harry nodded.

“Merlin, do you know anything?” Aster teased. “Azkaban is the most high security prison we have – if a Death Eater was convicted, they’d be sent there. It’ll narrow down the suspects, if a member of the family is incarcerated.”

“Are they in Azkaban, Dobby?” Harry looked back to the elf, who was watching him with large, frightened eyes.

He whimpered and shook his head – _crack_ , another finger.

“Alright, a Death Eater who wasn’t arrested at the end of the war is plotting something nefarious at Hogwarts,” Aster said. “That’s good. Well, not that it’s happening, but it’s good that we have the information. We can keep an eye out, now.”

“Dobby.” Harry swallowed, those broken fingers accusing him from the elf’s hand. “I’m not going to ask anything else, okay? Please stop hurting yourself.”

“So Harry Potter is not going back to Hogwarts?” Dobby asked, face open and hopeful. “That’s good, that’s good, sir can-”

“I’m still going.” Harry had to, now. He had to warn somebody about this plot – his first thought was Dumbeldore, but would he listen? No one had listened last year, when he and his friends were right about the stone. Or, maybe, _he_ could do something about it.

“No, Harry Potter cannot!”

“I have to, I can’t just sit back and do nothing if there’s a Death Eater scheme!”

Dobby cried, “Bad Dobby, Bad Dobby, told Harry Potter too much and now Harry Potter won’t-”

“Dobby, stop it,” Harry said. “How great would Harry Potter be if he let something evil happen at his own school?”

The elf just shook his head.

“I’m glad you told me, Dobby, you did good, alright? I just have to go back, you understand don’t you?”

Dobby started shaking, his whole body wiggling anxiously. “Harry Potter cannot.”

Harry sighed. “Can I just have my letters, please? Then we can-”

“Harry Potter will get his letters when he gives his word he won’t be going back to Hogwarts,” Dobby choked out. “This is too dangerous, a terror you cannot face, Harry Potter. You must give your word.”

“Don’t lie to him,” Aster warned. “I don’t know how house elf magic works, but promises can have power for us.”

Harry eyed her warily. No-one had ever mentioned anything like that to him before. But Aster had yet to lie outright – he thought – so he figured he might as well listen. “Dobby, give me my letters.”

“Give Dobby your word,” Dobby said.

“No.”

“Then Harry Potter leaves Dobby no choice.” His ears drooped, his tone was sad, and before Harry could reach out for the bundle, the elf bounded off the bed. Faster than Harry expected, Dobby wrenched open the door and sprinted down the stairs.

Harry was doomed. He was dead, gone, goodbye. His uncle wouldn’t stand for- for a strange magical creature interrupting his dinner party!

Mouth dry, he sprang desperately after the elf, doing his best to stay silent. He didn’t even check to see if Aster was following him before careening down the stairs and leaping the last six steps to land, catlike, on the hall carpet. From the dining room he could hear Uncle Vernon’s deep voice telling some stupid story, and Harry’s heart was up under his tongue – he’d been so, so lucky this summer, with his relatives fear of magic he hadn’t gotten the belt once, but he knew that streak would be over if this deal fell through because of him.

Somehow he managed to stay out of sight as he ran into the kitchen, but he immediately let out a pained whine when he saw what was going on.

Dobby was crouched on top of the corner cupboard and, in the middle of the room near the ceiling, in all its sugared violet glory, floated Aunt Petunia’s masterpiece of a pudding. Aster was standing off to the side, eyes wide and eyebrows drawn in concern. Did she know what would happen to him if Dobby kept going? Did she actually care?

“No,” Harry choked, “Please, Dobby... they’ll kill me – they’ll punish me so badly...”

Dobby, on his part, did look contrite. His eyes were cast to the side like he was ashamed, but that didn’t stop him saying, “Harry Potter must promise he’s not going back to school.”

“Please, please don’t...”

“Say it, sir.”

Aster faltered, moved forward like she wanted to try grabbing the dish out of the air, but stopped.

“Help me,” he begged her.

She gaped at him. “I can’t! I’m _dead_!”

Harry darted his gaze between Aster and the elf, his voice breaking as he told Dobby, “I can’t say it.”

“Then Dobby must do it, sir, for Harry Potter’s own good.”

The pudding dropped down and Harry slammed his eyes shut, unable to watch his life end right in front of him. Yet no crash came. He squinted through half open eyes, then stared in shock. It was still floating, maybe five feet off the floor now instead of the eight it had been before, and Aster was standing with her arms flung out in front of her, face contorted with strain.

Harry chanced a glance at Dobby and the elf was staring at him.

“Dobby truly is sorry, Harry Potter,” he said, and snapped his fingers.

The pudding jerked down suddenly, the dish shattering on the linoleum tile, and everything splattered everywhere. There was cream on the windows, the walls, and covering Harry head to toe, and before he could move or yell or do anything, Dobby vanished with a whip-like crack. Aster was untouched by the devastation but somehow managed to look furious and exhausted at the same time, and Harry hung his head as screaming started in the dining room. That’s when Uncle Vernon burst into the kitchen, face going purple, eyes narrowed into dangerous beads, and an older couple – the Masons – appeared, horrified, in the doorway behind him.

Uncle Vernon told them something – Harry’s heart was beating too hard for him to hear – and shooed them gently back into the dining room, then grabbed a mop from the cupboard and shoved it into Harry’s hands.

“Clean. This. Up.” He growled, and followed his guests.

Harry was shaking, his hands and face were cold, and fear was bubbling dangerously in his chest. He was gonna be sick. “A-Aster, Aster wh-what do I do?”

She popped beside him, but before she could say anything she flickered in-and-out, fuzzed around the edges, and disappeared.

Harry was alone.

The pudding on its own might not have been a death sentence, might not have been so bad, if not for the owl that swooped in not five minutes later and the letter it carried. The letter? From the Ministry of Magic, warning him for the use of underage magic, threatening to expel him and, subsequently, letting his family know he wasn’t allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts.

His uncle looked far too happy at the revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter so far! There was just a lot of dialogue I needed to include with Dobby and everything, so hopefully the length disparity isn't too jarring. And Aster! Wow, magic, huh? Aren't ghosts not supposed to have that anymore? Hmmm, a mystery. 
> 
> To everyone who's left a comment or a kudos, that you so, so much.


	16. Chapter 16

Aster didn’t know how long she had been gone – Merlin, she didn’t even know where exactly she went – but when she appeared in Harry’s room after the pudding incident her hackles were up in less than a second. There were bars on his window – bars! – and two extra locks and a cat flap on his bedroom door. His owl – Hettie? Hedwig? – almost seemed like she was staring at her as she moved from the corner of the room to Harry’s bedside.

Could animals see her? In her moments of lucidity before Harry, which, admittedly, were few, students’ pets never gave her a second look. Was Hedwig special? No, she had to focus, the bird wasn’t important.

“Harry?” Aster reached out instinctively, then flinched when she was able to put a hand on his shoulder. That was new. She hadn’t been able to touch anyone, ever.

Wait, hadn’t he held her hand that night... the night where...

Aster shook her head, then shook the small boy lightly. “Harry, are you alright?”

He was lying on his stomach and his face scrunched up the more she jostled him. “Go-way,” he mumbled, then buried his head under his flat pillow. His blanket had become twisted up around his waist and Aster wished, ridiculously, she could pull it back up for him.

Of course, that’s when she noticed the blood. Dark blotches soaked through the back of his ratty shirt, like raindrops or smears of dye, standing out against the washed grey as prominent as a lumos in a dark room.

Her hands trembled, rage simmered beneath her skin, and fractals of frost crawled delicately up the glass in the window. Those brainless fucking muggles, those utter wastes of space and air and blood, how dare they hurt him? Aster hated them for the hands they laid on him before, but now? She was livid. Children were meant to be cherished, was it different for muggles? Or just these muggles in particular? Her teeth ground against each other – Circe, she was- she was-

Only when Harry started shivering in his sleep did Aster manage to calm herself, and by then the window was covered in a thin sheen of ice.

Why did she care so much? She wasn’t some Hufflepuff with a bleeding heart!

Aster abruptly remembered the presence of a small, trembling hand in her own, the first and only comfort she’d ever gotten after her death. He had to have been terrified – she vaguely recalled the sound of sobbing that wasn’t her own – but he stayed by her side anyway.

Oh, that’s why.

He was _good._ She cared because he was good, and kind, and held onto his humour, and despite the horrible life he lived he still managed to hold out a hand for a girl he hardly knew.

In an instant she was in the Dursleys’ master bedroom, hovering at the foot of the bed.

She was a witch, she didn’t have to stand for this! Sure, she was a ghost, but she was something different, too. Normal ghosts couldn’t do magic, and she had; down in the kitchen, holding that pudding aloft, that had been wandless magic – she knew it, she knew what it felt like. She was dead, but she went against everything she’d been taught.

That was okay, it just meant she could learn – she could learn and _do_ something to these wretched pigs.

Aster watched, pale eyes full of fire, as Harry’s aunt and uncle started shivering under their thick, comfortable duvet, and she _hated_. The muggles’ dirty breaths came in clouds of white and their wide, bar-less window disappeared under curling fingers of rime, and Aster imagined the joy of hitting that bastard Vernon with a well placed diffindo. She didn’t, didn’t know if she could manage an actual spell and, more importantly, figured such an injury would get Harry in trouble.

Oh, but she could imagine it all she liked.

A sharp _tink_ echoed in the freezing room – the window had cracked, a long, jagged line running up from the corner like a thread of spider silk marring the smooth glass.

“Wha-? Pet, whassat?” The great whale of a man mumbled, rousing from his slumber. Aster could hear his teeth chattering. “Bloody hell, why’s it so cold?”

She was on the horse-faced woman’s side of the bed, then, leaning in close to examine her pinched expression. Petunia Dursley’s lips were turning blue.

“Petunia?” Bastard Dursley poked his wife in the arm. “C’mon Pet, wake up.”

“V-Vernon?” Bitch Dursley stuttered. “D-did you le-leave the air on?”

He shook his head, then a dark look fell over his squashed face. “I bet it’s that boy, doing more of his freakish shite. I oughta-”

Shit, shit, shit! She should’ve been more careful!

A blink and she was back in Harry’s room, facing the door, placing herself between it and the boy sleeping on the bed. She could change the temperature and hold things aloft, that was it, how was she supposed to protect a kid with such a meagre array of magic?

Aster floated, her feet unable to stay planted on the ground for all her nerves. She listened for Bastard Durlsey’s footsteps and, when she heard nothing, flickered forward into the hall to check. Their bedroom door stayed shut; no whale came thundering into view.

She didn’t have to breathe – didn’t, often – but she let out a shaky sigh of relief anyway. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the crack in the window? Or, if they did, maybe they wouldn’t blame Harry? Aster was barely able to contain her own scoff – no, they blamed Harry for everything. Once the milk was late and he got a slap for somehow delaying a truck driver he’d never met.

So she’d made a mistake.

Hopefully Harry wouldn’t pay for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've hit a bit of a block a couple chapters ahead with this story, so I won't be updating again until I've pushed on past it. Hopefully that'll be soon. Again, thank you everyone for your support.


	17. Chapter 17

Aster had been on edge all morning; she thought she was hiding it, but Harry could tell. Every time footsteps sounded outside his bedroom she tensed, darting unreadable looks towards the door and flickering to a spot between it and him. Like she was getting ready to defend him, though against what Harry had no clue.

When Aunt Petunia had unlocked the door earlier for him to go to to the bathroom? Oh boy, Harry thought for sure Aster would somehow make herself visible and tangible and attack whoever came in. She deflated a little when she saw who it was, but she still followed him down the hall and stood guard outside the bathroom door.

He was starting to get freaked out, to be honest. Did she know something was coming? Did she have some sort of ghostly sense for danger? This was the longest she’d stuck around at one time, and Harry was sure that meant something was coming.

It wasn’t until his aunt shoved an unopened can of vegetable soup through the cat flap two hours later that Aster said something.

“How does she expect you to open that?”

“Oh, you’re talking to me now?” Harry deadpanned.

She bristled. “I was- I was concentrating, I couldn’t waste energy on chatter.”

He raised an eyebrow as he went to pick the can up off the floor.“Concentrating on what?”

She paused, looking a little flustered. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t think it worked anyway.”

Harry just stared.

“I was trying to call up my magic – like how I did when I floated that ugly pudding.”

“Why?”

“Well,” she said quietly, fidgeting awkwardly, “I thought _they_ might come in and... you know...”

Shaking his head, fiddling with the label on the can, he said, “No I don’t.”

Aster scowled and flung her hand out. “Yes you do, it’s right there on your back.”

Harry stilled. He didn’t think she’d noticed – no-one ever noticed. “What does that matter?” He frowned, defensive.

She appeared on the other side of the room and snapped, “What does it _matter_? You’re a kid, they shouldn’t hurt you like that!”

“M’not a _kid_ ,” Harry muttered.

“Sure look like one from this angle.”

“Why do you care?”

An ugly scowl pulled at her lips. “Maybe I shouldn’t!”

With that, Aster popped from existence without a sound.

Harry was left sitting on his bed staring at the can bouncing between his hands. Really, why did she care so much? Shouldn’t she be happy _James Potter’s_ son was getting hurt like this, after all that man did to her? He shuddered. Even thinking about it in passing made his stomach lurch.

She had been standing guard, trying to shore up magic she wasn’t even supposed to have, put herself between him and his relatives in a way nobody ever had, and Harry didn’t understand any of it.

How had she levitated the platter? Ghosts didn’t have magic, everyone knew that. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be invisible to everyone except him, either, and yet she was. She did.

He peeled the label back and stared at his distorted, blurry reflection in the aluminum. Was she going to come back? He wanted to ask her stuff. About his scar, about runes, about house elves and Death Eaters and the plot at Hogwarts. More importantly, though, he wanted to ask about her death. It made him sick to think on it too long, to remember that night and the blood and the pain, but he had to know. He _had_ to.

Why had James Potter done it? Was there a reason? Did Aster _do_ something? Or did his father – James Potter – just... just kill a girl in cold blood?

Did he really want the answers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! I got a bit stuck, bit I think I'm back in the groove now. Thank you for all your support - I hope everyone is enjoying the journey~


	18. Chapter 18

“It was a werewolf. That’s why I- why it...” A few hours after he asked, she came back ready to go farther into it. Or that’s what she told herself, that she was ready. Aster watched Harry from the corner of her eye, face angled away in discomfort. He didn’t push, only looked at her with those big green eyes and waited for her to continue. She swallowed. “They’re vicious.”

“My dad was a _werewolf_?” He breathed, gaunt cheeks losing the little colour they had left.

She shook her head once, neck tense. Logically she was aware it had happened over a decade ago, that her... her body was nothing but bones in the ground, but feeling was something different. She’d drifted around Hogwarts, in and out of lucidity, but that didn’t feel like it took years – it _felt_ like just a few weeks ago she was crawling in the dirt, clawing at the floorboards, crying for help, trying to get away, trying to-

“Then is wasn’t him? It wasn’t my dad?” Harry’s voice rose. “Why did you tell me it was? You lied to me! Why would you-”

“I didn’t _lie_!”

“Yes you did!” Harry yelled angrily. “You said my dad killed you, but he wasn’t a werewolf! You said it was a werewolf – it couldn’t’ve been him!”

“HE LURED ME THERE!” She roared. Her dead lungs didn’t need it but she panted heavily, fists clenched at her sides. “He tricked and taunted me, sent me little notes in class, lured me all the way out to the Shrieking Shack and promised we’d settle everything! Only he wasn’t _there_! None of them were, except the- the-”

Tearing, screaming pain; hair plastered to her face, matted with grime and gore; dirt jammed up under broken fingernails and empty space where fingers used to be; blood forcing up into her mouth, pooling on her tongue, spewing past her lips; a guttural, inhuman howl in her ear as talons and teeth rend flesh from bone. No-one is coming, _no-one is coming_. She can’t see, _she can’t see_ , nothing but darkness and red agony and salt water spilling from her eyes, she tastes it on her gums. Screaming, pleading, she is dragged back, her broken arm twisting beneath her, her mangled hand scrabbling for purchase, her throat gushing spouts of crimson, the beast reaches down and _bites_ -

Aster was kneeling, her hands cradling her head and tangled in her hair, rocking back and forth to a litany of _please please no._ Where was she? Not the Shack. No, it was too clean, to bright. But where? How did she escape? Did someone come, had someone heard her?

“-ster? Aster, can you hear me?”

Shakily she looked up towards the voice, her hair falling in tangled strands in front of her eyes, and she flinched with her whole body before she focused properly. Not James Potter, _not James Potter_ , that was Harry, Harry Potter.

Oh. Abruptly, her hands were in her lap. She kept her head down as she tried to fight back the shame that frothed in her chest. Sucked, again, into memories long turned to dust. For what? What good did living it over and over do her? Wasn’t death supposed to be restful?

Aster was sitting next to Harry on his bed, then, moving in that way like quiet apparition done with only a thought. He didn’t jump; seemed he was getting used to it.

“What was that?” Harry asked softly. Merlin, his eyes were so open, so green and imploring and compassionate. Why? Why was he looking at her like that?

She brushed her hair back behind her ears. There was still that ache in her chest, the sense of something vital missing between her lungs, but she pushed past it. It didn’t matter – she was dead, it didn’t matter. “Sometimes it’s like I’m... I’m back there, in the Shack. I forget that I’m not.”

“Was it because I asked about it?”

“Maybe.”

“Is that what happened before, that night?”

Aster nodded, an awkward motion that went on too long. “There’s not always a warning... or a reason...”

Little Potter was silent for a moment, but still his gaze was trained on the side of her face. Out of her periphery she could see him searching her behind his glasses, like he was analyzing her, dissecting her, picking under her ghostly skin to see the gooey mess beneath. Then he said, “I need to know, Aster.”

She supposed he did. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him, didn’t want to have to think about it in such detail, but there was nobody else. Except James Potter, who was dead, and his friends, who were lost in the wind; Aster was the sole keeper of her own end.

“James Potter...” She pursed her lips and started over. “Your dad was a bully. If you weren’t in Gryffindor you weren’t worth a knut, and Slytherins were worth even less. If you had dirty clothes, or greasy hair, or hand-me downs, or you were ugly, or you dared to fight back, or you didn’t bow down at his feet, him and his cronies would target you. They’d mock you and jinx you and hex your things, then get all their housemates to treat you like shit.

“He strutted around Hogwarts like he owned it, like being a quidditch player made him special or powerful, like he was a god among wizards just for being a Potter. He never... he was always getting into trouble but nothing ever stuck, because Dumbledore liked him, because McGonagall liked him, he never faced consequences for anything.”

She held her hands in her lap, rubbing at her fingernails like they were charmed to ease anxiety, and it took her a moment to realize the strange snuffling noise was coming from Harry. He wasn’t looking at her, didn’t have his head in his hands or anything, but she could see the subtle shine gathering in his eyes. Circe, she made the kid cry.

He breathed deeply, shakily, and said, “Everybody told me he was good, that he was smart and funny and kind.”

“Well, they lied,” Aster said. “People don’t like speaking ill of the dead. Anyway, I bet everyone you talked to were Gryffindors – probably all thought he was hilarious and charming.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?” Harry’s eyes were wild, desperate. “You’re a Slytherin; there wasn’t a wizard who went bad that wasn’t in Slytherin. Maybe you got into a big fight with him and he killed you in self defence, maybe there wasn’t a werewolf at all!”

She knew he was reaching, she could hear it in his voice that he didn’t believe what he was saying, but that didn’t stop a chill from seeping into the air. “You didn’t think that earlier. What, you hear a few details and suddenly you get squeamish? Can’t stomach your dad was no better than Dudley?”

His fingers dug into his oversized jeans and his eyebrows drew together, a harsh moue taking over his thin face. “Settle what?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you were supposed to settle everything, that he tricked you instead – what did you have to settle?”

Aster felt her face twitch. “I was one of his favourite targets – me and my friend Severus – and-”

“Wait, wait! Severus? Severus _Snape_?”

She stopped. Obviously he’d gone on and made something of himself, probably became some well known potioneer after patenting his creations, but it was odd to think about. The last time she’d seen him he’d been a gangly fifteen year old mooning over Evans – he would be thirty-three now. “Yes?”

“You were friends with _Snape_?”

 _Were._ Past tense. _Had been_. It made perfect sense but she didn’t have to like it. Besides, little Potter’s tone? He sounded too much like his father. _Snivellus_. “I thought you wanted to know how your father lured me to my death.”

“But Snape? Really?”

“How do you even know him?” Aster sneered. “It’s not like you got to hear about our school days.”

Harry ignored her jab. “He’s our Potions professor, and Head of Slytherin. He’s _horrible_.”

“He’s your _what_?”

“I know you heard me.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” she sputtered. “Severus would never become a professor, he’s much too... too...”

“You’re not wrong, there.”

“I bet you’re a terror, that’s why he’s so _horrible_.”

“Of course, it’s all my fault.” He scoffed.

Aster looked away. She wanted to say her friend wouldn’t ever take out his anger on a kid he hardly knew, but she knew she’d be lying. Merlin, she’d done the same thing, hadn’t she? Harry just... looked so much like his dad. James was always so cruel, and Severus so angry, that it was all too easy to see what her old friend had done. Could have done, she didn’t know for sure. She didn’t know how little Potter acted in class, around people he was supposed to respect.

 _You do know his kindness_ , a small voice whispered saccharine in her ear.

“Whatever, Snape doesn’t matter,” Harry said darkly. “What did my dad do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! I try to write a couple chapters ahead so, I've been working on that these past weeks. Only two more chapters of this recap and then we'll get back to canon again, hope no-one's been bored. 
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who's taken the time to give feedback~


	19. Chapter 19

She sat in Divination, her head down, her shoulders hunched up against her ears, her hair falling like a curtain around the open pages of her journal, and she seethed. Wadded up balls of paper, spitballs, and stinging hexes peppered her back, her legs, her arms, and somehow Professor Augury was still completely oblivious. Maybe not, she thought, maybe he just didn’t care. After all, it was _the Marauders_ who were causing the disturbance, terrorizing her, getting their spit in her hair, and _the Marauders_ could do no true wrong.

There were only ten, fifteen minutes, tops, left in the period, and as much as Aster usually enjoyed the most mystic of the magical arts, today she couldn’t wait to leave.

Professor Augury swept through the room, peering into student’s crystal balls as though he’d be able to see what they saw in the foggy glass, answering half asked questions and adjusting misaligned tablecloths. He never came close to her own table, where she sat alone.

Dream journal tucked protectively under her arm, Aster cross-referenced her own jagged, early-morning scrawl against the neat explanations in her marked-up copy of _Unfogging the Future_. Her dreams didn’t often make sense or progress linearly, but the beauty of dream interpretation meant even the most muddled scenes could be deciphered and – hopefully – offer hints of what was to come. Augury, though he was a bit of a coward and didn’t like getting in the crossfires student squabbles, had taken her aside at the end of third year and told her she had more inclination than most towards his subject. She didn’t really see it, didn’t have an obvious gift of Sight, but Aster liked being good at things and so she kept on. As such, she was one of the only fifth years there who wasn’t just looking for an easy O.

Halfway down the page on moons and their symbolism, a small parchment dove fluttered down onto her desk. It was beautifully done, the animation strong enough to keep it moving like a real bird even as it landed, head bobbing and turning, and Aster went instantly stiff. Who would send something like this? She touched its beak and, after nuzzling her finger, the bird began elegantly unfolding itself. On the inside, once it was laid out flat, Aster could see a sketch and a note penned in red ink. The tension in her shoulders didn’t dissipate.

She’d gotten hateful notes from git Potter and bastard Black before, lobbed at her head or plastered to the backs of her robes, but she usually didn’t even open them before tossing them out. This one, though, they made sure she’d be curious enough to watch the bird unfold, and now she couldn’t keep herself from reading the message. The sketch was awful; a hideous little figure obviously meant to be her was writhing where it stood, ugly face contorted in pain as flames engulfed her, billows of smoke wafting to the edge of the page. Her heart seized, freezing in her chest, but that wasn’t the worst part. Below, written messily as a muggleborn’s first attempt with a quill, was a message that had her teeth grinding together.

_Join your Death Eater scum, hag._

Her parents hadn’t been Death Eaters, they had never been You-Know-Who’s followers, never! Wasn’t it enough he killed them in his raid, burned them alive in their own home? Didn’t that prove anything?

Her face was flaming, her lips pulled back in a snarl. She ferociously ripped up the parchment and-

A burst of red powder exploded in her face, going up her nose and in her eyes and coating her tongue, and a chorus of obnoxious laughter rose behind her. As she rubbed frantically at her eyes – the powder beginning to burn – she heard the rest of the class start tittering and snickering as well. Glaring over her shoulder, she saw Potter give her a dainty little wave from where he sat not three metres away, a smug grin on his baby face, a pot of red ink on the corner of his desk.

Fuck him, fuck all of them!

Aster had a curse bitten between her molars, her wand summoned from her sleeve into her hand, and was about to whip around to show Potter why he shouldn’t mess with a Slytherin when Augury dismissed them all for the end of class. She was too furious to jump up with the rest of them and head out, but Potter and Black and Pettigrew were lost in the wave of students spilling out the trap door and down the ladder.

She sat at her desk, entire body vibrating with the force of her restrained rage, waiting for the last stragglers – all of them pointing and whispering with snide smiles on their faces – to leave before pulling a handkerchief from inside her robes. It was rough on her skin as she dragged it over her face, desperate to get the fiery powder off. After several vicious wipes she transfigured the cloth into a small mirror with which to examine the damage.

There was still some in her hair that she was quick to shake off, but what was left behind was even more horrifying; whatever that powder was, it spattered her hair with an ugly, bright orange stain wherever it touched, and her face! Merlin, her face was even worse. A deep red splotch covered from her forehead to her chin, and rubbing at it just made it darker, and the darker it got the more it irritated her skin.

Aster ignored the stinging in her eyes – not tears, _not tears_ , just an effect of the powder – and slammed her chair back as she stood. One flick of her wand and all her things were flying into her bag, the flap of which then closed and hummed with the low-level anti-tampering ward she’d spent an afternoon sewing into the fabric.

Professor Augury said nothing, didn’t even spare her a glance as she hurried down the ladder.

She landed in the hall and crossed her fingers, a stupid muggle practice she learned from Severus first year, hoping Potter and his boot-lickers weren’t waiting for her around the next corner.

Why? Why did they always have to do shit like this? Teeth grinding, Aster kept a tight grip on her wand as she walked.

The corridors were empty, the stairways too, since everyone was already in the great hall for lunch, and she made the split-second decision to avoid the meal altogether and head to the hospital wing instead. Madam Pomfrey would be able to reverse the charm, or potion, or whatever bloody thing those gits had dosed her with, and Aster would be good as new in no time.

Of course, missing lunch – avoiding the entire school – would just make _the Marauders_ feel like they won, like they beat her, but that was a small price to pay. Either show up relatively on time with her face all red and see them congratulating themselves for an hour, or show up late with the problem solved and have them feel like they shamed her into hiding; this battle was already lost.

Not the war, though. Aster felt her wand hum with excess energy. No, she’d just have to retaliate with something even more humiliating, more clever, more public.

They’d get theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! I've been in a bit of a writing funk. I won't make any promises about update speed this time, but just know I plan on taking this for the long haul... eventually ^^;


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's opinion of his parents drops even further. Aster gives Harry a few more details concerning the lead up to her death.

“Pomfrey fixed it,” Aster said. “But the damage was already done.”

Harry’s heart was in his stomach, his chest a great gaping hole sucking in all the good things he’d ever felt about James Potter and vanishing them somewhere he couldn’t reach. That his dad would mock someone’s dead family, would tell someone they should _die_ , it was too awful for him to wrap his head around. That his friends, this Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, were just as bad, God, why had his mom ever married such a person? Had she been like that, too?

He didn’t voice any of those thoughts. Instead, Harry picked at his nails and asked, “What does this have to do with how you died. I thought you were telling me about that, not...”

“Not more horrible shit your father put me through?”

Harry shrugged stiffly.

“This was the tipping point.” Aster breathed deep but didn’t seem to let it go. “This is what made me mad enough to confront them by myself – without Severus to back me up – to get some payback. Which is when Potter stuck his note to the backs of my robes.”

“You attacked them?”

Aster sneered. “You’re going to try and make me apologize for it? That wasn’t even the first time they brought my parents into it!”

He clammed up, hunched over, tried to make himself look as small as he felt. Why had no one told him? Why had no one ever mentioned, ever, _ever_ , that James Potter had so utterly tormented other people? There had to be a reason, right? There had to be an explanation. Aster could be mean, spiteful – she’d just blamed him for Snape’s actions even though she knew them both – so maybe she’d been like that when she was alive. Maybe, it was possible, she deserved it?

“I wanted to hurt them so badly,” she admitted, face blank. “I had a spell for it and everything – a nasty curse Severus and I started working on – but I couldn’t. My parents just died that year and I was slated to go into Ministry care for the summer, and if I got expelled or anything serious like that they wouldn’t take me. I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go.”

“Not even a horrible aunt?”

Aster snorted, but the listless cast didn’t disappear from her eyes. “No, not even. It was just us, and then it was just me.”

Harry wanted to know. Why did Voldemort kill Aster’s parents? She was a Slytherin, so why wasn’t she a Death Eater? But he’d also waited so long to hear this part, how his dad killed her, that he decided it could wait.

“I followed them from the great hall to this dead-end corridor and, instead of making them hurt like I should’ve, I just hexed them a little when their backs were turned. The two of them – Potter and Black, I didn’t care where the others were – against one of me, but I got them.” She grinned, but it had nothing to it. “We were screaming at each other – I called Black a slag at one point and said your grandparents were worthless squib-fuckers – and spells were flying, and I got Potter square in the face with the worst boil jinx before Black laid me out flat.”

He stared at her, waited for her to continue.

“He kicked me as he went by – your dad – and Black spat on my robes, and they left me there in the middle of the deserted corridor, aching and angry. I was... I was so furious I didn’t notice Potter’s note charmed to my back until McKinnon pointed it out in Herbology. He even wrote it in that same damned red ink. 

“I should’ve known better,” she said, voice flat and eyes hard. “I shouldn’t have gone. But I was still so mad, and I knew I was a faster caster than everyone else in our year – I thought it’d be an easy win, if he kept his word and came alone.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

Aster licked her lips. “The note was a challenge, a duel that night in the Shrieking Shack – not a proper Wizard’s Duel, just us, no Seconds – and I was naive enough to take it at face value. Don’t know why I did, don’t know why – in the one moment in mattered – I decided to trust _Potter_ , of all people.” She paused, and silence weighed heavy in the air before she pushed on. “Severus was convinced Lupin was a werewolf, that Dumbledore and the rest of Potter’s gang were all conspiring to keep it a secret, but I didn’t believe him. It sounded ridiculous, you know?”

He didn’t nod when she looked at him.

“Sure, the boy was a hypocrite and a coward and he was sick all the time, but a werewolf? Not even a muggle-lover like Dumbledore stupid enough to let a monster into Hogwarts, not even Potter would be cruel enough to sic a one on a schoolmate.” She clenched her fists in her lap and bowed her head, letting her hair fall like a curtain to separate them. “But they were. Dumbledore was so fucking stupid he let a werewolf run free in his school, and Potter planned a murder with no remorse.”

Harry could see his breath billowing between them in clouds. He realized, belatedly, that Aster was fuzzing around the edges again, her outline jumping like static into the surrounding air, faint afterimages hovering sporadically to either side of her.

Oh, it was tied to her emotions. Negative emotions, it had to be.

“I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, or for what reason, or who I was meeting,” she said, her voice going thready and weak. “I just disillusioned myself in the dungeons and left. I half expected to be caught, thought I’d have to listen to them calling me a chicken for the next few months, but I got out unnoticed and trudged through the grounds in the dark until I got to the Whomping Willow.”

“I thought you were going to the Shrieking Shack?”

“Right, right.” She shook her head, like she was trying to knock her thoughts back into place, and choked on an empty laugh. “There were directions on the note, told me there was a passage at the base of the tree that led to the Shack and all I had to do was hit a knot on the trunk to stop the branches flailing everywhere. That’s the only thing he didn’t lie about." A pause. Aster gasped, a wet sound, a sound that could either be tears or blood in her throat. "I crawled in, on my hands and knees, and I followed the tunnel, and I-

"That's where it was. The werewolf, in the Shack proper, just sitting and snuffling around and I- I walked right into it." She laughed, but it was warped and terrifying. "I came up out of that hole in the floor and it was just those  _eyes_ staring at me, and- and then-"

He thought she might go on, she looked like she had something more to say, but Aster just worked her jaw and flicked her hair behind her shoulders with shaky hands.

“There.” Her arcing was getting worse, more violent, and her voice was distorting eerily, a song on the radio with the treble turned way up. “Now you know.”

Before Harry could ask another question, could decide whether she was telling the truth or not, she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost out of the Dursleys! Just two more chapters in this hell-hole and Harry will be free of them til next summer. Hmm, wonder what will change in second year now that we have Aster hanging around?  
> Thank you everyone who's subscribed and commented and left kudos! It really means so much to know you guys are enjoying the story :)  
> (P.S. [I have a blog for my writing!](https://lorettastwilight.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-down-down) Check out my Down Down tag for edits of Aster and other fun things!)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry suffers and starves, and Aster finally gathers some Hufflepuff determination to change Harry's situation.

Harry had been locked up in his room for three days, with the last two spent mulling over all Aster had told him about James’ part in her death. At least, what she claimed his part had been. No, no that wasn’t fair. Aster had been honest about everything else; his letters, his scar, the blood wards. Harry just didn’t want to believe his father had been so awful. He thought he’d accepted it, but hearing – in full – how he’d tricked someone into getting ripped apart by a werewolf? That was as bad as James casting the killing curse himself.

Knees tucked up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, Harry sat and realized that the Dursleys had been right after all – James Potter may not have been a drunk, but he sure had been a lowlife.

The setting sun shone in through his window, the bars casing long lines of shadow over his desk and across the floor to the door. Dust motes floated lazily in the beams of light and, halfheartedly, Harry held out his hand to pretend he was casting a yellow-y lumos with his fingers. Aster hadn’t had to use a wand to levitate the pudding, but then again, Aster was dead. Not even the normal type of wizard-dead, no, she was some sort of ghost he’d never heard of; maybe she could teach him wandless magic?

Did it even matter, though? He hadn’t seen the ghost since their stilted conversation about her grisly end, and Harry was beginning to worry she wouldn’t come back. Funny, he used to wish she’d stay away.

He jumped when the cat flap rattled and Aunt Petunia’s hand slid in a can of soup. She said nothing, and her arm was gone from his room in a blur, like she was afraid he’d start gnawing on it or something. Which, honestly, was starting to sound like a good idea. They fed him once a day – always soup – and the only water he got was when they let him out to use the washroom and he could drink from the tap, and that was once a day, too. He eyed the can – chicken noodle – with apprehension. At least they’d started opening them first.

His stomach groaned, aches of hunger wracking his body, and he was on the floor, grasping for his meal before he knew it. Slurping half of it down in one stone-cold gulp, he savoured some of the noodles and a couple of the chicken chunks before restraining himself, drinking the rest more slowly while being careful not to cut his lips on the sharp metal edges. Once the liquid was gone, Harry walked over to Hedwig’s cage and tipped the rest of the soggy vegetables, noodles, and chicken bits into her empty food tray.

She ruffled her feathers up in disgust.

“Oh don’t complain about it,” Harry scolded. “I know it’s nasty, but it’s all we have.”

Hedwig tilted her head to the side, examining him, before bobbing twice on her perch and leaning down to gobble up what he’d given her.

Harry sighed and pushed the empty can a few inches out past the cat flap and into the hall, like he was supposed to. Sat on the floor, back against his bed, he felt the ridges of his ribs through his threadbare shirt and tried not to get scared. He was too skinny, far too skinny. His wrists were like toothpicks, for God’s sake; he didn’t know if he’d make it four weeks to Hogwarts, not with how his _family_ was treating him.

For a good half hour he sat there, watching sunlight slowly dim against the bare walls of Dudley’s second bedroom to pass the time, and only crawled up into his bed when he saw the artificial glow of the streetlights snap on. Sleep didn’t come easily, no, he was too absorbed in the twisted sneer he imagined on his James Potter’s face, the same he’d seen on his relatives’ faces his entire life, as he tricked Aster to her death.

Harry threw his arm over his eyes, hoping to block it out. All he’d wanted was a family to love him, and his family ended up being a bunch of bullies. Maybe his mum was different? He hoped, he wished so hard, but logic started to overrule that dream. How different could she be if she married a murderer?

Before he was able to drift off, he felt a cold aura seep into his neck. Harry didn’t jolt or sit up in fear, all he did was drop his arm onto his chest and peak out from one squinted eye. Oh, Aster had her hand through his shoulder, almost like she was trying to shake him.

“Good, you’re awake,” she said. A flicker, and she was standing by the door. “Get up.”

“What?” Harry asked blearily, propping himself up on one elbow to fix Aster with a perplexed look. “Why? What are you-”

She was in his face, freezing hands closing around his wrists, pulling him up, and hissing between clenched teeth. “Get _up._ They finally fell asleep, come _on_.”

“Wait, wha- what’s happening?” He stumbled forward, dragged along until Aster let go, then hurriedly shoved his glasses onto his nose and was halfway across the room before he stopped dead. “What are you talking about?”

“If you stay here any longer these muggles will kill you,” Aster spat, arcing erratically back and forth in front of him. “So I’m getting you out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts? Predictions? Anything at all y'all feel like sharing? If so, drop a comment - I'd love to hear from you!


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Number Four gets some unexpected visitors, Aster saves the day, and Harry is almost out of Privet Drive.

She had a plan. It wasn’t the most sophisticated plan, wasn’t the plan she thought she’d execute concerning a Potter, wasn’t as clean or as quick or as fool-proof as she’d like, but it was a plan and that’s what she clung too.

Circe, when had the little brat wormed his way into her heart? She wished she could pinpoint it, but supposed it didn’t matter in the long run – a Potter killed her and now she was saving a Potter’s life, and the world just kept turning.

Finding her magic again, when the stakes weren’t immediately high, when she wasn’t blurry with the rush of emotion, was infuriatingly hard. Like somebody had blocked her core, had a solid wall erected between her and what made her a witch, and all she could do was claw at the plaster until a sliver of light spilled through into her hands. Even getting that sliver free was exhausting, and she was glad she only had to unlock a few doors for her plan to work.

Well, unlock a few doors and get Harry Potter to _start moving_.

“Grab your owl and let’s go.” Aster was over next to the cage on the desk and would’ve shoved her hand into Hedwig’s body to wake her up if she thought it would work. “Do you want to be free or not?”

She watched Harry splutter quietly a moment, before he said, “The door’s locked.” 

Aster knew that, of course, and even though she’d been a fourth year before mastering any wandless magic she knew that Harry needed to learn quick – if he’d known any, then this wouldn’t have happened. She gestured impatiently for him to grab the owl’s cage and, when he did, flickered back to the door. “Not for long it won’t be.”

“You can’t do magic!” He pleaded, eyes wide behind his broken glasses. “If the Ministry finds out I’ll be expelled!”

“The trace is on the wands, Harry – I won’t be using a wand, everything will be fine.”

“Then why did that letter come when Dobby dropped the pudding?” Harry asked, voice twisted like he’d caught her in a lie. “He didn’t use a wand either.”

“House Elf magic is something I don’t understand all that well,” she admitted reluctantly. “Either they have trackers placed on them, or he somehow alerted the Ministry on his own. But trust me, alright? Wandless magic doesn’t trigger any alarms.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“Because I’ve done it,” she bit out. “I’ve done it with muggles, seen it done with muggles – on muggles, around muggles, within sight of muggles – never saw anyone get any blasted letter.”

Harry was quiet, then, and a hopeful light had started reflecting in his green eyes.

Finally. “We’re going to go downstairs, get your trunk, and walk down the road a ways – at least until we’re out of sight of the house – then you’re going to hail the Knight Bus.”

“The what-bus?”

Aster sighed, frustration at his lack of knowledge warring with her frustration at the reason for his lack of knowledge. “It’s a magical bus that can take you around the more populous areas of England, though I’ve heard if they like you they can take you anywhere in the UK. Anyway, we’re going to take it to Diagon Alley and get you a room somewhere until September first. I don’t care what _Dumbldore_ has to say about it, this place is hardly _safe_.”

Somewhere along the street outside a car coughed exhaust into the night air with a bang, the purely muggle noise making Aster flinch.

Harry, for his part, didn’t seem to notice. He just stared up at her with wide eyes and, quietly, asked, “What if he’s right, though? What if leaving exposes me and I get attacked?”

She was going to answer – though she hadn’t decided what she would say to reassure him – when the wracking cough of that car sounded again, this time much, much closer than the street below. Aster looked up, about to sneer or make some snide, biting comment about muggles and their barbaric means, and froze.

There, in the window, peering in through the bars and the streaky glass, was a boy. Red-haired, with a face full of freckles and a mouth dropped open in shock, he was pressed up against a second window, the back passenger window of a car door, gawking into Harry’s room with absolutely no shame.

She snarled, flickered to stand between Harry and the intruder, and was about to – well, alright, she didn’t exactly know – when little Potter whirled around to see what had her so agitated.

“Ron!” He gasped, and looked back at Aster looking more joyful than she’d ever seen him. “That’s my friend, Ron Weasley.”

Oh, right, his living friends, he had those. “What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry whispered, then ran to the window to push it up, one hand curling around the bars as he set Hedwig down on his bed.

She listened, her fists clenching, as _Ron_ and his brothers explained about their father’s _enchanted muggle car_ and that they were here to rescue Harry, bring him to their house, save him from staying with the Dursleys for another minute – as if Aster didn’t already have everything under control. Not like they knew she even existed, not like they could see her, but it was the principle of the thing; Harry already had an escape plan, thank-you-very-much! She was so lost her in own irritation that the sound of those ghastly bars being ripped clean from Harry’s window had her wavering in surprise.

“Harry!” She hissed. “They’ll hear that!”

He glanced back over his shoulder, face gaunt and white with fear as he listened for the thundering of Vernon Dursley’s footsteps. When nothing came, he gestured apologetically to the Weasleys in the flying car – illustrating how he couldn’t just start talking to thin air – and turned his back to her again.

She couldn’t blame him, not really, this was an opportunity literally dangling in front of his face, just waiting to be grabbed. Why would he turn it down just to follow Aster’s idea? It was a Slytherin thing, to take the opportunities that came your way.

Teeth grinding in her head, Aster appeared next to Harry by the window as he’d just passed his owl through to be set snugly in the back seat of the car. “Don’t forget your trunk,” she muttered.

He caught her eye, giving her a small smile and a minute nod, carefully out of sight of the boys in the flying car. They were whispering for him to hurry up, climb in after Hedwig so they could make their getaway. Circe, at least they weren’t making too much of a racket – the last thing Harry needed was the Dursleys catching him running away.

“All my school stuff,” Harry told them. “It’s still locked up.”

One twin shot a dark look to the other, then shooed him away from the open window. “Where is it?” The first twin asked as he clambered into the room, managing somehow not to get his long legs caught on the sill.

“In the cupboard under the stairs, down in the front hall,” Harry said.

The second twin slipped in behind his brother and said, “We’ll get your stuff no problem.”

Harry was standing next to Aster in the corner, watching as the first twin pulled something out of his pocket and went to kneel in front of the door. “Fred,” he asked. “What are you doing?”

Ah, that was his name. What about the other one?

“Muggles know how to pick locks with hairpins,” Fred explained around the pin he bent between his teeth. “We’ve picked up a few tricks.” He slid the metal into the lock on the door handle, moving it slowly up and down as he bit his lip in concentration.

There was a faint _click_ as, presumably, the pick worked, but the door stayed firmly shut.

Aster had, in the commotion, forgotten about the second lock bolted to the other side of the wall. Shit. She was in front of Harry, then, asking, “You don’t want them to know I’m here, right?”

He gave one small jerk of his head.

“Then trust me.” Aster reached for his hand and there was a split second where they touched, properly, before her fingers phased right through his skin. He still got the gist, though, and followed when she flickered over to the door. “There’s another lock, on the outside.”

Fred was frowning. “I was sure I had it. The pin didn’t even break, what-”

“There’s another lock,” Harry told them, his eyes still on Aster where she hovered over the red-head’s shoulder.

“Ah, fuck,” he cursed, and turned to his brother. “Any ideas, George?”

The other twin – George – tugged at his ear. “Not really, mate.”

“We could always magic it...” Fred trailed off, chewing his lip even harder. “But then they’d know for sure we were here, and Mum would be livid if we got one of those letters.”

Aster just huffed and told Harry, “Hold out your hand.”

He looked confused, but, after only a little hesitation, did as she asked.

Popping out of his room and across, reappearing in the hallway, Aster took one long look at the Dursleys' bedroom door – fingers crossed that the whale and the horse didn’t wake up in the next ten minutes – before leaning towards the deadbolt. She’d prepared for this, she’d practised, it would work out perfectly. She told herself that, twice, then focused that little sliver of magic she’d dragged out of the pinhole in that wall and imagined the little knob flicking to the side.

“Harry,” Aster heard one of the twins say. “What are you-”

 _Thunk_ , the bolt slid free.

A wave of heat rushed through her and she could _feel_ her form going fuzzy on the edges, but she managed to phase through the door and settle back next to Harry, who was staring at his hand like it was a foreign object.

Then he caught her eye, and the confusion melted away. She winked, though that sickly warmth was still coursing through her.

“Holy shit,” George muttered. “Did you just-”

“-unlock that wandlessly?” Fred finished.

Both of them were staring at Harry in some sort of confused awe.

For his part, Little Potter flushed at the attention and shrugged helplessly. Maybe Aster shouldn’t have put him in that position, but it was the only thing she could think of. Besides, it wouldn’t be a lie once she actually started teaching him.

A mischievous light shone in the twins’ eyes. “Wicked,” they said, in unison.

“Come on,” Ron hissed from where he sat in the car, which was still hovering outside the house. “Hurry up, before some muggle sees this junk floating around!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a really long wait and I'm very sorry. I started school in September and was really focused on my grades, as well as being burned out writing wise since I'm in a writing-centred program. Hopefully the next chapter doesn't take half as long. Thank you to everyone who has bookmarked, subscribed, commented, and left kudos, your support means so much :)


End file.
